A model of intelligent intrusion detection based on rough neural network (RNN), which combines the neural network and rough set, is presented. It works by capturing network packets to identify network intrusions or malicious attacks using RNN with sub-nets. The sub-net is constructed by detection-oriented signatures extracted using rough set theory to detect different intrusions. It is proved that RNN detection method has the merits of adaptive, high universality,high convergence speed, easy upgrading and management.