Kuldashbay Avazov¹, Jasur Sevinov^2,3, Komil Tashev⁴, Jamila Arzieva⁵, Tulkin Botirov⁶, Alpamis Kutlimuratov⁷, Akmalbek Abdusalomov^{2,4,8,9,10,11}, Boburjon Vafoev¹², Young Im Cho^1,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.89, No.2, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.087927 - 15 September 2026

Abstract Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and Internet of Things (IoT) systems require lightweight cryptographic primitives that provide strong security under strict constraints on area, latency, and timing predictability. Ascon, selected by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as the standard for lightweight authenticated encryption, is well suited for such environments, yet application-oriented hardware implementations for WSN platforms remain underexplored. This paper presents a comprehensive evaluation of field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based Ascon architectures for secure WSN and IoT deployments, using iterative design with single permutation round and hybrid design with two-round unrolling across two FPGA… More >

Lasseni Coulibaly^1,*, Damien Hanyurwimfura¹, Evariste Twahirwa¹, Abubakar Diwani²

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.89, No.2, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.087148 - 15 September 2026

Abstract Intelligent transportation systems, a critical pillar for smart cities, enable real-time vehicular communications to prevent human errors and improve traffic safety and efficiency. However, the open and highly dynamic nature of vehicular networks exposes them to various security threats, including message tampering, impersonation, and privacy violations. Several authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocols have been proposed to mitigate these risks, but often fail to maintain future-proof security against emerging quantum threats or introduce significant latency that affects real-time applications by relying on computationally expensive public-key cryptography, blockchain or centralized architectures. This paper proposes a new… More >

Chung-Pao Lin¹, Yi-You Hou^2,*, Teh-Lu Liao¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.89, No.2, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.085788 - 15 September 2026

Abstract Smart grids (SG) integrate multiple network entities to achieve automation, but their interconnected nature also exposes communication networks to various security threats, such as replay, tampering, and man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. Existing encryption frameworks for smart grid edge devices often suffer from high computational complexity or lack of dynamic key management, leading to key leakage risks and communication bottlenecks. To address these challenges, this research proposes a lightweight end-to-end secure communication architecture specifically designed for smart grid power monitoring. This framework employs the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol as the asynchronous communication backbone, effectively alleviating… More >

Vikas Tyagi^1,*, Mrinmoy Kayal¹, Arvind Prasad^2,*, Gauhar Ali³, Sajid Shah³, Muhammad Asim³

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.89, No.2, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.085763 - 15 September 2026

Abstract Healthcare systems based on the Internet of Things (IoT) are widely used in patient monitoring, telemedicine, emergency care, and hospital-at-home services. However, existing IoT healthcare networks still face major challenges related to security, trust management, network control, and real-time emergency data handling. Centralized trust mechanisms and repeated cloud-based verification may increase delay and reduce reliability in critical healthcare scenarios. Moreover, suspicious medical devices must be quickly isolated, while sensitive patient data and emergency traffic must be protected and prioritized. To address these issues, this work proposes a blockchain-enabled, software-defined networking (SDN)-based edge computing framework for… More >

Hyunbum Kim^*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.89, No.1, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.085773 - 13 August 2026

Abstract Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, have attracted considerable research interest across diverse fields, encompassing public and private domains, industrial and academic fields, transportation areas, disaster and harsh environments, reliable delivery services, digital twin-enabled space, and smart cities. In particular, UAVs play a critical role in surveillance and security applications. In this paper, we investigate recent advances in surveillance and intelligent security applications using UAVs. This study covers a wide range of practical tasks and missions including intelligent traffic monitoring, disaster environments, forests and national parks, large-scale events and patrols in public circumstances. Also, More >

Yufa Shi^1,#, Jiaxing Hu^2,#, Lipeng Wang^1,3,*, Rui Ma^1,3,*, Mengyao Wang¹, Zhijuan Jia^1,3

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.89, No.1, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.085633 - 13 August 2026

Abstract AI agents frequently access external files, databases, and application programming interfaces (APIs) through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). However, these external resources typically lie outside the security boundary of the agent. During data circulation, attackers can not only tamper with the external data but also manipulate critical metadata, such as access permissions, validity periods, and authorization scopes. Even when the underlying data remains intact, such attacks can cause proxies to ingest expired or policy-violating resources, leading to severe privacy breaches and risks of unauthorized execution. To address these challenges, we propose SecuAudit, a privacy-enhancing decentralized… More >

Bareera Anam, Muhammad Asim, Muhammad Nadeem Ali, Byung-Seo Kim^*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.89, No.1, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.084949 - 13 August 2026

Abstract The rapid evolution of communication networks, driven by the expansion of heterogeneous environments such as 6G, Internet of Things (IoT), and edge computing, has exposed a critical research gap in the lack of unified frameworks that jointly address intelligent network control and quantum-resilient security. Existing networking protocols were originally designed under static configurations and classical security assumptions, making them increasingly inadequate for dynamic, large-scale, and intelligent infrastructures exposed to quantum-enabled threats. At the same time, the emergence of Quantum Computing (QC) introduces severe security risks, as widely used cryptographic mechanisms supporting protocols such as Transport… More >

Tallha Akram^1,*, Sadiq Ahmad^2,*, Meshal Alharbi³

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.89, No.1, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.081458 - 13 August 2026

Abstract Scalability limitations, privacy risks, and lack of adaptability remain key challenges in centralized medical digital win (MDT) architectures. While federated learning (FL) mitigates the need to share raw data, it often lacks adaptability to dynamic clinical environments and does not fully integrate formal privacy guarantees into the learning process. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a decentralized, federated, multi-agent reinforcement learning (F-MARL) framework to coordinate MDTs in the presence of partial observability. The framework is formulated as a multi-agent partially observable Markov decision process (MA-POMDP), enabling distributed policy optimization in heterogeneous and uncertain clinical… More >

Li-Woei Chen¹, Kun-Lin Tsai^2,*, Fang-Yie Leu³, Chao-Tung Yang^3,4,5, Wei-Zong Liang²

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.148, No.1, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2026.083880 - 27 July 2026

Abstract Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm networks are increasingly deployed in surveillance, disaster response, and intelligent transportation systems, where secure and efficient communication is critical under resource-constrained environments. However, conventional public-key-based security mechanisms introduce excessive computational overhead, while standalone intrusion detection systems are insufficient to defend against dynamic and multi-vector attacks in swarm networks. To address these challenges, in this paper, a lightweight time-indexed secure communication framework with intrusion detection modeling (TSCID) is proposed for resource-constrained UAV swarm networks. The proposed TSCID integrates a time-indexed session key derivation mechanism with lightweight authenticated encryption to ensure confidentiality,… More >

Joong-Hyun Park¹, Jiho Choi², Libor Mesicek³, Hoon Ko^2,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.88, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.084659 - 23 July 2026

Abstract With the rapid expansion of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), the importance of digital identity–based security has significantly increased. However, conventional static authentication mechanisms are insufficient to effectively address various identity misuse and abuse attacks. In this study, we model digital identity as a dynamic security entity and propose an AI-based framework that integrates a risk scoring model—combining unsupervised anomaly detection with context-aware analysis—and a multi-level risk-adaptive access control mechanism (Permit, Step-Up, Restrict). Experimental results using an extended version of the CERT Insider Threat Dataset tailored for IoMT environments provide proof-of-concept evidence that the More >