TY - JOUR AU - Cherla Lavanya Kumari AU - Tallapally Mounika AU - Akurathi Lakshmi Pathi Rao PY - 2026 DA - 2026/02/09 TI - Evaluating Autoencoders Vs Variational Autoencoders For Anomaly Detection In Network Security JO - Global Journal of Engineering Innovations and Interdisciplinary Research VL - 6 IS - 2 AB - Anomaly detection is crucial for maintaining network security, and this study compares the effectiveness of traditional Autoencoders (AE) and Variational Autoencoders (VAE) for detecting anomalies in network traffic data. Leveraging their respective architectures, AEs and VAEs are evaluated based on key performance metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and AUC-ROC. The results reveal that VAEs significantly outperform AEs across all metrics, demonstrating higher accuracy (94.0% vs. 92.5%), precision (92.5% vs. 91.0%), recall (96.0% vs. 94.0%), and F1-score (94.1% vs. 92.5%). Additionally, VAEs exhibit a superior AUC-ROC of 95.0% compared to 94.2% for AEs. These findings underscore the VAE's enhanced capability in capturing complex data patterns and distinguishing between normal and anomalous behaviors more effectively. This study provides valuable insights into the advantages of probabilistic modeling in improving anomaly detection performance, offering a more robust solution for network security applications. SN - 3066-1226 UR - https://dx.doi.org/10.33425/3066-1226.1203 DO - 10.33425/3066-1226.1203