Open Source Intrusion Detection Systems' Performance Analysis Under Resource Constraints

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) issued regulations to enhance cyber security in the maritime domain. Researchers suggest deploying open-source intrusion detection systems (IDSs) aboard to ensure the ships' operational technology network (OTN) complies with these regulations and enhances cyber security readiness. According to previous studies, selecting the optimal IDS is a complex procedure. Our research examines and compares the performance of three open-source IDSs under restricted resources to identify their resource needs, dropped packet ratio, and other software characteristics in virtual and physical environments. Our findings indicate that two of the examined software options can effectively handle the network traffic of ships' OTNs under restricted resources. However, it's worth noting that a Raspberry PI4 (RPi4) minicomputer, while a popular choice, may not be the most optimal hardware for this purpose.