Tao Bai¹, Yang Tang², Kuan Shao³, Zhenyong Zhang^3,*, Yuanteng Liu⁴

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.88, No.1, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.078473 - 08 May 2026

Abstract In recent years, the rapid development of artificial intelligence has greatly promoted the application of Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS). Users can upload their requirements through front-end applications, and the server provides model inference services after receiving the user input. However, MLaaS may lead to serious privacy breaches. Large language model services are typical representatives of MLaaS, and the Transformer is a typical structure in large language models. Therefore, this paper proposes a privacy-protected Transformer inference scheme based on the CKKS fully homomorphic encryption scheme to optimize computational and communication efficiency. Firstly, this paper… 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 >

Mohammed M. Alenazi^*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.87, No.2, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.075966 - 12 March 2026

Abstract Multimodal spatiotemporal data from smart city consumer electronics present critical challenges including cross-modal temporal misalignment, unreliable data quality, limited joint modeling of spatial and temporal dependencies, and weak resilience to adversarial updates. To address these limitations, EdgeST-Fusion is introduced as a cross-modal federated graph transformer framework for context-aware smart city analytics. The architecture integrates cross-modal embedding networks for modality alignment, graph transformer encoders for spatial dependency modeling, temporal self-attention for dynamic pattern learning, and adaptive anomaly detection to ensure data quality and security during aggregation. A privacy-preserving federated learning protocol with differential privacy guarantees enables… More >

Yuewei Tian¹, Yang Su², Yujia Wang¹, Lisa Guo¹, Xuyang Wu^3,*, Lei Cao⁴, Fang Ren³

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.072081 - 12 January 2026

Abstract This study addresses the risk of privacy leakage during the transmission and sharing of multimodal data in smart grid substations by proposing a three-tier privacy-preserving architecture based on asynchronous federated learning. The framework integrates blockchain technology, the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for distributed storage, and a dynamic differential privacy mechanism to achieve collaborative security across the storage, service, and federated coordination layers. It accommodates both multimodal data classification and object detection tasks, enabling the identification and localization of key targets and abnormal behaviors in substation scenarios while ensuring privacy protection. This effectively mitigates the single-point… More >

Fang Liu^*, Xianghui Meng, Jiachen Li, Sibo Guo

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.2, pp. 1-21, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.069243 - 09 December 2025

Abstract With the popularization of smart devices, Location-Based Services (LBS) greatly facilitates users’ life, but at the same time brings the risk of users’ location privacy leakage. Existing location privacy protection methods are deficient, failing to reasonably allocate the privacy budget for non-outlier location points and ignoring the critical location information that may be contained in the outlier points, leading to decreased data availability and privacy exposure problems. To address these problems, this paper proposes a Mix Location Privacy Preservation Method Based on Differential Privacy with Clustering (MLDP). The method first utilizes the DBSCAN clustering algorithm… More >

Nujud Aloshban^*, Abeer A.K. Alharbi

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.85, No.3, pp. 4795-4826, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.067523 - 23 October 2025

Abstract The rise of 6G networks and the exponential growth of smart city infrastructures demand intelligent, real-time traffic forecasting solutions that preserve data privacy. This paper introduces NeuroCivitas, a federated deep learning framework that integrates Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for spatial pattern recognition and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks for temporal sequence modeling. Designed to meet the adaptive intelligence requirements of cognitive cities, NeuroCivitas leverages Federated Averaging (FedAvg) to ensure privacy-preserving training while significantly reducing communication overhead—by 98.7% compared to centralized models. The model is evaluated using the Kaggle Traffic Prediction Dataset comprising 48,120 hourly records… More >

Hao Li^1,#, Kuan Shao^1,#, Xin Wang², Mufeng Wang³, Zhenyong Zhang^1,2,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.82, No.3, pp. 5387-5405, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.059718 - 06 March 2025

Abstract Due to the development of cloud computing and machine learning, users can upload their data to the cloud for machine learning model training. However, dishonest clouds may infer user data, resulting in user data leakage. Previous schemes have achieved secure outsourced computing, but they suffer from low computational accuracy, difficult-to-handle heterogeneous distribution of data from multiple sources, and high computational cost, which result in extremely poor user experience and expensive cloud computing costs. To address the above problems, we propose a multi-precision, multi-sourced, and multi-key outsourcing neural network training scheme. Firstly, we design a multi-precision More >

Bolin Zhang, Ruichun Gu^*, Haiying Liu

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.82, No.2, pp. 2521-2535, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.060331 - 17 February 2025

Abstract Federated Graph Learning (FGL) enables model training without requiring each client to share local graph data, effectively breaking data silos by aggregating the training parameters from each terminal while safeguarding data privacy. Traditional FGL relies on a centralized server for model aggregation; however, this central server presents challenges such as a single point of failure and high communication overhead. Additionally, efficiently training a robust personalized local model for each client remains a significant objective in federated graph learning. To address these issues, we propose a decentralized Federated Graph Learning framework with efficient communication, termed Decentralized… More >

Congcong Wang¹, Chen Wang^2,3,*, Wenying Zheng^4,*, Wei Gu⁵

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.82, No.1, pp. 799-816, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.057975 - 03 January 2025

Abstract As smart grid technology rapidly advances, the vast amount of user data collected by smart meter presents significant challenges in data security and privacy protection. Current research emphasizes data security and user privacy concerns within smart grids. However, existing methods struggle with efficiency and security when processing large-scale data. Balancing efficient data processing with stringent privacy protection during data aggregation in smart grids remains an urgent challenge. This paper proposes an AI-based multi-type data aggregation method designed to enhance aggregation efficiency and security by standardizing and normalizing various data modalities. The approach optimizes data preprocessing, More >

Deema Alsekait¹, Mohammed Zakariah², Syed Umar Amin^3,*, Zafar Iqbal Khan³, Jehad Saad Alqurni⁴

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.81, No.2, pp. 2395-2436, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.055469 - 18 November 2024

Abstract The widespread adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has resulted in notable progress in different fields, improving operational effectiveness while also raising concerns about privacy due to their vulnerability to virus attacks. Further, the study suggests using an advanced approach that utilizes machine learning, specifically the Wide Residual Network (WRN), to identify hidden malware in IoT systems. The research intends to improve privacy protection by accurately identifying malicious software that undermines the security of IoT devices, using the MalMemAnalysis dataset. Moreover, thorough experimentation provides evidence for the effectiveness of the WRN-based strategy, resulting in… More >