A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack attempts to prevent people from accessing a server. A
website may become inaccessible due to a DDoS attack because the server is inundated with fake requests and cannot handle real ones. A DDoS attack affects a large number of computers. Attackers employ a zombie network, which is a collection of infected machines on which the attacker has hidden the denial-of-service attacking application to carry out a DDoS attack. The MATLAB 2018a simulator was used in this study for training. Additionally, during design, the knowledge discovery dataset (KDD) was cleaned and the values of attacks were incorporated. A neural network model was subsequently developed, and the KDD was trained using a recursive artificial neural network. This network was developed using five distinct training algorithms: 1) Fletcher–Powell conjugate gradient, 2) Polak–Ribiére conjugate gradient of, 3) resilient backpropagation, 4) gradient conjugation with Powell/Beale restarts, and 5) gradient descent algorithm with variable learning rate. The artificial neural network toolset in MATLAB was used to investigate the detection of DDoS attacks. The conjugate gradient with Powell/Beale restart algorithm had a success rate of 99.9% and a training time of 00:53. This inquiry uses the KDD-CUP99 dataset. Has a better level of accuracy, according to the results