Abdullah Alshammari^*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.88, No.1, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.078634 - 08 May 2026

Abstract The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the infrastructure of smart cities has posed cybersecurity risks like never before, which have direct implications on the sustainability and energy consumption of cities. In this paper, a multi-faceted Threat-Resilient Energy-Conscious Security Framework (TRECSF) is introduced that combines intrusion detection methods powered by deep learning, blockchain-driven data integrity verification mechanism, and energy-aware security protocols in smart city ecosystems to achieve their sustainability. The new Hybrid Convolutional Neural Network-Long Short-Term Memory (CNN-LSTM) model is introduced to the proposed architecture, which fulfills the purpose of the study to… More >

Liam Revell¹, Hyunjae Kang^1,*, Jung Taek Seo², Dan Dongseong Kim¹

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.147, No.1, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2026.078467 - 27 April 2026

Abstract The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has increased the importance of network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) for protecting modern networks. However, many machine learning and deep learning based NIDS rely on large volumes of labeled attack data, which is often impractical to obtain for newly emerging or rare attacks. This paper presents a benchmark-style systematic evaluation of meta-learning-based Few-Shot Learning (FSL) classifiers for detecting previously unseen intrusions with limited labeled data. We investigate three representative FSL models, namely Prototypical Networks, Relation Networks, and MetaOptNet, and further examine two decision-level ensemble strategies based… More >

Faten S. Alamri¹, Muhammad Amjad Raza^2,3, Abeer Rashad Mirdad⁴, Adil Ali Saleem², Tanzila Saba^4,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.87, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.077084 - 09 April 2026

Abstract Rapid expansion of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems has heightened the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to sophisticated malware attacks. Traditional signature-based detection methods are ineffective against evolving threats, and many machine learning models fail to capture temporal behavior, offer interpretability, or operate efficiently in resource-constrained environments. This study proposes HMF-Net, a Hierarchical Multi-Feature Network, for accurate, interpretable, and efficient IIoT malware detection. HMF-Net combines hierarchical VT-Tag embedding (HVTE) to model semantic behavioral information, temporal detection ratio analysis (TDRA) to capture confidence variations for polymorphic malware, and static structural binary features. These features are fused… More >

Abdulaziz A. Alsulami^1,*, Badraddin Alturki², Ahmad J. Tayeb², Rayan A. Alsemmeari², Raed Alsini¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.87, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.076413 - 09 April 2026

Abstract Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) play a critical role in protecting networked environments from cyberattacks. They have become increasingly important in smart environments such as the Internet of Things (IoT) systems. However, IDS for IoT networks face critical challenges due to hardware constraints, including limited computational resources and storage capacity, which lead to high feature dimensionality, prediction uncertainty, and increased processing cost. These factors make many conventional detection approaches unsuitable for real-time IoT deployment. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an adaptive intrusion detection framework that intelligently balances detection accuracy and computational efficiency. The proposed… More >

Saleh Alharbi^*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.87, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.073584 - 09 April 2026

Abstract Real-time threat detection in Internet of Things (IoT) networks requires scalable, privacy-preserving, and interpretable models capable of operating under strict latency constraints. This paper presents EdgeTrustX, a privacy-aware federated transformer framework that addresses these challenges by combining transformer-based representation learning with federated optimisation, differential privacy, and homomorphic encryption. The framework enables collaborative model training across heterogeneous IoT devices without exposing sensitive local data while maintaining computational feasibility for edge deployment. A multi-head attention mechanism integrated with a secure aggregation protocol supports adaptive feature weighting and privacy-protected parameter exchange. To enhance transparency, an explainability module that… More >

Chengqi Liu¹, Yongtao Li², Weiping Zou^3,*, Deyu Lin^4,5,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.87, No.1, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.074975 - 10 February 2026

Abstract With the large-scale deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, their weak security mechanisms make them prime targets for malware attacks. Attackers often use Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA) to generate random domain names, hiding the real IP of Command and Control (C&C) servers to build botnets. Due to the randomness and dynamics of DGA, traditional methods struggle to detect them accurately, increasing the difficulty of network defense. This paper proposes a lightweight DGA detection model based on knowledge distillation for resource-constrained IoT environments. Specifically, a teacher model combining CharacterBERT, a bidirectional long short-term memory More >

Muntaham Inaam Hashmi¹, Muhammad Ayaz Khan², Khwaja Mansoor ul Hassan¹, Suliman A. Alsuhibany^3,*, Ainur Abduvalova⁴, Asfandyar Khan⁵

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.071452 - 12 January 2026

Abstract Cyber-criminals target smart connected devices for spyware distribution and security breaches, but existing Internet of Things (IoT) security standards are insufficient. Major IoT industry players prioritize market share over security, leading to insecure smart products. Traditional host-based protection solutions are less effective due to limited resources. Overcoming these challenges and enhancing the security of IoT Devices requires a security design at the network level that uses lightweight cryptographic parameters. In order to handle control, administration, and security concerns in traditional networking, the Gateway Node offers a contemporary networking architecture. By managing all network-level computations and… More >

Misbah Anwer^1,*, Ghufran Ahmed¹, Maha Abdelhaq², Raed Alsaqour³, Shahid Hussain⁴, Adnan Akhunzada^5,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.1, pp. 1-15, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.068673 - 10 November 2025

Abstract The exponential growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has introduced significant security challenges, with zero-day attacks emerging as one of the most critical and challenging threats. Traditional Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) techniques have demonstrated promising early detection capabilities. However, their effectiveness is limited when handling the vast volumes of IoT-generated data due to scalability constraints, high computational costs, and the costly time-intensive process of data labeling. To address these challenges, this study proposes a Federated Learning (FL) framework that leverages collaborative and hybrid supervised learning to enhance cyber threat detection in… More >

Sapan Pandya^*

Journal of Cyber Security, Vol.7, pp. 637-651, 2025, DOI:10.32604/jcs.2025.073670 - 24 December 2025

Abstract Ransomware has evolved from opportunistic malware into a global economic weapon, crippling critical services and extracting billions in illicit revenue. While most research has centered on enterprise networks and healthcare systems, an equally vulnerable frontier is emerging in lottery and betting kiosks—self-service financial Internet of Things (IoT) devices that handle billions of dollars annually. These terminals operate unattended, rely on legacy operating systems, and interact with sensitive transactional data, making them prime ransomware targets. This paper introduces a Resilient Security Framework (RSF) for kiosks under ransomware threat conditions. RSF integrates three defensive layers: (1) prevention… More >

Muhammad Saad Farooqui¹, Aizaz Ahmad Khattak², Bakri Hossain Awaji³, Nazik Alturki⁴, Noha Alnazzawi⁵, Muhammad Hanif^6,*, Muhammad Shahbaz Khan²

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.145, No.3, pp. 4395-4439, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2025.072023 - 23 December 2025

Abstract Quality of Service (QoS) assurance in programmable IoT and 5G networks is increasingly threatened by cyberattacks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), spoofing, and botnet intrusions. This paper presents AutoSHARC, a feedback-driven, explainable intrusion detection framework that integrates Boruta and LightGBM–SHAP feature selection with a lightweight CNN–Attention–GRU classifier. AutoSHARC employs a two-stage feature selection pipeline to identify the most informative features from high-dimensional IoT traffic and reduces 46 features to 30 highly informative ones, followed by post-hoc SHAP-guided retraining to refine feature importance, forming a feedback loop where only the most impactful attributes are More >