Journal of Software Engineering and Applications > Vol.18 No.

6, June 2025

Enhancing Cybersecurity in IoT & IIoT: A Machine

Abstract
The rapid proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT) has
revolutionized industries through enhanced connectivity and automation. However, this
expansion has introduced significant cybersecurity challenges, including vulnerabilities to
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, malware, and unauthorized access. Traditional
security measures like firewalls and encryption are often inadequate due to the dynamic and
resource-constrained nature of IoT/IIoT networks. While Machine Learning (ML) has emerged
as a promising solution for anomaly detection, challenges such as scalability, adversarial
robustness, and energy efficiency remain unresolved. This study aims to address these gaps
by developing an optimized ML-based framework for real-time anomaly detection in IoT/IIoT
environments. The methodology integrates supervised (Random Forest), unsupervised
(Isolation Forest), and deep learning (LSTM autoencoder) techniques, leveraging federated
learning for edge deployment and adversarial training for robustness. Evaluated on
benchmark datasets (TON-IoT, CICIDS2017, UNSW-NB15), the framework achieved a 96.2%
F1-score, 14.5 ms latency, and 40.5% energy savings, outperforming traditional methods.
Key findings demonstrate its effectiveness in balancing detection accuracy, computational
efficiency, and explainability (SHAP values > 90% confidence). The study concludes that
hybrid ML models significantly enhance IoT/IIoT cybersecurity, answering the research
question affirmatively. Future directions include exploring quantum ML for efficiency and
standardizing evaluation benchmarks.

Keywords
IoT Security, Anomaly Detection, Machine Learning, Adversarial Robustness, Edge Computing

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Koroma, M. , Mansaray, A. , Kamara, Y. , Jalloh, C. and Bah, I. (2025) Enhancing
Cybersecurity in IoT & IIoT: A Machine Learning Approach for Anomaly Detection. Journal of
Software Engineering and Applications, 18, 175-193. doi: 10.4236/jsea.2025.186012.

1. Introduction
The Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have totally changed
the way industries work by connecting devices and automating processes, which helps in
making smart decisions [1]. IoT includes all those smart gadgets and sensors that gather and
share data, while IIoT takes this further into areas like manufacturing, energy, and
transportation [2]. Because of the rise of IoT and IIoT devices, we’re now seeing a huge
surge in data, which can really help with efficiency and maintenance [3]. But, with all this
growth comes some big security issues since a lot of IoT and IIoT systems don’t have strong
security, which can leave them open to cyberattacks [4]. In IoT and IIoT ecosystems,
concerns like DDoS attacks, malware, and unauthorized access can seriously threaten data
security and system performance [5]. Such fundamental measures of security such as
firewalls and encryption methods are often rendered ineffective in the face of the highly
heterogeneous and dynamic landscapes found in IoT networks [6]. Plus, many IoT devices
don’t have the processing power to handle complicated security measures. Because of this,
we really need better ways to spot and deal with cyber threats in real-time. Machine Learning
(ML) is starting to look like a good answer for improving security in these systems [7]-[10].
Being able to analyze a lot of network data, it helps find out different patterns and catches
everything that seems off. Different ML techniques have shown that supervised learning and
unsupervised learning did miracles and could distinguish normal behavior from unusual
behavior pretty well [11]. Still, there are some ongoing issues, like false alarms and attacks
on the ML models themselves, which we need to sort out [12]. Improving cybersecurity in
IoT and IIoT using ML’s anomaly detection is key to protecting important systems, keeping
data private, and ensuring everything runs smoothly [13]. Solid detection systems can help
prevent financial losses, protect sensitive information, and reduce downtime from cyber-
attacks. Plus, using machine learning in IoT and IIoT security fits right in with the changes
we’re seeing in Industry 4.0, making industrial systems smarter and tougher [14].
The ever-increasing deployment of IoT/IIoT systems is posing a real-time challenge to
existing security mechanisms for the detection of advanced cyber threats; though many
systems with such an intention exist, challenges are nonetheless apparent [15]. Conventional
signature-based detection schemes work poorly against zero-day attacks, and rule-based
systems fail mainly because of the ever-changing nature of IoT networks [16]. Therefore,
adaptive, scalable, and efficient ML parameterization for anomaly detection needs to be
considered to overcome those limitations [17]. This research is concerned with the design
and evaluation of ML-based anomaly detection models developed for IoT/IIoT environments.
The research analyzes supervised and unsupervised methods, including deep learning, to
increase detection accuracy and reduce computational overhead [18]. The work covers real-
world IoT/IIoT datasets and simulated attack scenarios for validation [19]. The primary
research question is: How can machine learning enhance anomaly detection in IoT/IIoT
cybersecurity? The aim of this study is to design an efficient ML-based framework for
identifying and mitigating cyber threats in IoT/IIoT networks. Key objectives include: 1)
reviewing existing ML-based anomaly detection techniques, 2) developing an optimized
detection model, and 3) evaluating performance metrics such as precision, recall, and
computational efficiency [20]. Unlike prior works focusing on single-algorithm approaches
(e.g., SVM or LSTM alone), our hybrid framework uniquely combines Random Forest,
Isolation Forest, and LSTM autoencoders to address both known and zero-day attacks. This
integration achieves superior accuracy (96.2% F1-score) while maintaining edge
compatibility, a gap in existing literature. Additionally, our adversarial training and federated
learning components advance robustness and scalability, respectively, beyond current state-
of-the-art solutions [11] [17].
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section II reviews related works on
IoT/IIoT security and ML-based anomaly detection. Section III presents the proposed
methodology, while Section IV discusses experimental results. Finally, Section V concludes
the study and suggests future research directions.

2. Literature Review
2.1. Overview of IoT and IIoT Security Challenges
The rapid adoption of IoT and IIoT has introduced complex security challenges due to the
heterogeneous and distributed nature of these systems [1] [2]. Traditional security
mechanisms, such as firewalls and encryption, struggle to protect IoT/IIoT networks due to
their limited computational resources and dynamic attack surfaces [4] [6]. In a world of
cyber threats, botnet attacks such as Mirai, ransomware, or man-in-the-middle (MITM)
attacks exploit the vulnerabilities of poorly secured IoT devices. Critical infrastructure IIoT
systems such as smart grid power supply infrastructures and industrial control systems are
prime targets of the advanced persistent threats (APTs) that can interrupt the operational
procedures to a catastrophic extent [5]. Various authors have pointed out the shortcomings
of the traditional intruder detection systems (IDS) regarding IoT/IIoT
environments [13] [16]. A signature-based IDS mainly suffers from the inability to detect so-
called zero-day attacks, whereas rule-based systems are intended to be in constant need of
updating to remain helpful [13] [21]. Due to the huge amount of data produced by IoT
devices, it is also imperative that detection mechanisms be scalable and real-time, which
traditional security methods typically do not provide [22] [23].
2.2. Machine Learning for Anomaly Detection in IoT/IIoT
Machine Learning (ML) has developed into a leading means of detecting anomalies in IoT/IIoT
networks due to its unique characteristics of being able to learn patterns from data and adapt
to the evolving nature of these threats [8] [9]. SVM and Random Forest are two supervised
learning algorithms often applied for high-accuracy classification of malicious
traffic [24] [25]. One major drawback with these algorithms is that they require labeled
datasets, which are often in short supply in real-life IoT implementations [26].
Clustering (K-means, DBSCAN) and autoencoders are different types of unsupervised
learning approaches that have found increased applicability in the detection of unknown
attack patterns without prior labeling [10] [27]. Deep learning offers several models for
solving this problem, among which CNNs and LSTMs have comparatively excelled in
recognizing complex signature attacks in network traffic [17] [28]. For instance,
Mirsky et al. [18] proposed an ensemble of autoencoders, called Kitsune, for the real-time
intrusion detection system in IoT networks with a high detection rate and low latency.
However, machine-learning-based anomaly detection is still a challenge because of
adversarial attacks (for instance, evasion and poisoning attacks), many false positives, and
resource overhead in IoT devices [11] [29]. Federated learning and edge-based ML have
been proposed to mitigate these issues by distributing computation and preserving data
privacy [30] [31].
2.3. Comparative Analysis of Existing Approaches
A comparative analysis of recent ML-based anomaly detection techniques reveals varying
performance across different IoT/IIoT datasets. Meidan et al. [7] demonstrated that
behavioral profiling using ML improves device identification and attack detection in IoT
networks. Similarly, Chaabouni et al. [11] found that hybrid models combining supervised
and unsupervised learning outperform single-algorithm approaches in detecting zero-day
attacks.
However, most existing studies focus on specific attack types (e.g., DDoS, malware) rather
than providing a holistic security framework for diverse IoT/IIoT environments [32] [33].
Additionally, there is a lack of standardized evaluation metrics and benchmark datasets,
making it difficult to compare different ML models fairly [34]. Recent works emphasize the
need for explainable AI (XAI) in cybersecurity to enhance trust and interpretability in ML-
driven detection systems [35].
2.4. Research Gaps and Opportunities
On the one hand, ML-based anomaly detection has immense potential to help secure IoT/IIoT
systems. On the other hand, it has quite a lot of issues being subject to very important
research gaps. Scalability is an important critical area of research. For instance, a lot of ML
models cannot work on IoT/IIoT networks that are high in terms of dimensionality and it
should be real-time for large production [36]. Besides, they don’t account for adversarial
robustness. You have such an ML model which is open to evasion and poisoning
attacks [29] [37]. Moreover, energy efficiency remains a major problem because the
deployment of deep learning models, which are resource-hungry in computations, is rarely
possible on IoT devices that are resource deficient [38]. And it adds the disadvantage of non-
availability of common datasets and evaluation metrics that compare the performance of
models in several studies [34]. In face of these drawbacks, new approaches such as
reinforcement learning (RL) for dynamic threat adaptation show a high promise for future
research, as also quantum ML improvements in computational efficiency [39]-[44]. This could
go a long way in developing strong, scalable, and energy-efficient ML solutions for IoT/IIoT
security.

3. Methodology
3.1. Data Collection and Preprocessing
3.1.1. Data Collection
The research made use of three benchmark datasets to evaluate the framework proposed.
The TON-IoT dataset provided the telemetry data of IoT/IIoT devices with labels offering
realistic attack scenarios [45]. The CICIDS2017 dataset was used for analyzing the network
traffic due to its diverse attack signatures [46], and the UNSW-NB15 instance offered dual-
testing environments in hybrid IoT-enterprise scenarios [47]. These datasets were selected
for maximum coverage in relation to the security challenges posed in IoT/IIoT including zero-
day attacks and temporal anomaly detection.
3.1.2. Preprocessing and Justification
The data preprocessing consisted of three vital steps. Min-max scaling was applied first to
normalize non-homogeneous data values into a single range. Following that, dimensionality
reduction was performed with a Principal Component Analysis for linear correlations, while an
auto encoder was used for capturing other non-linear patterns considering maximum
computational efficiency. Next, engineering of temporal features such as session duration and
packet-frequency related statistical measures was performed such that better discriminative
power was necessitated. PCA was intended for better interpretability, making it useful for
linear relationships, whereas the autoencoders complemented it by capturing complex non-
linear dependency presented in the data, ensuring that the representation of features is kept
as a solid feature representation for subsequent ML models [48] [49].
3.2. Model Architecture
Our hybrid ML framework employs a strategically selected combination of three
complementary algorithms, each targeting distinct dimensions of IoT/IIoT security threats
while collectively addressing the limitations of monolithic approaches [11] [17]. The
ensemble comprises: 1) a Random Forest classifier (100 trees, Gini impurity) optimized for
high-precision (95.8% F1-score) identification of known attack signatures in labeled datasets;
2) an Isolation Forest detector (ψ = 0.01) implementing unsupervised anomaly scoring to
surface zero-day threats without dependency on labeled examples; We chose the Isolation
Forest algorithm because it works well for finding anomalies without needing labeled data,
which is often hard to come by in high-dimensional IoT or IIoT data. Its way of breaking
down the data helps it spot anomalies with fewer splits, making it faster and easier to use,
especially on devices that have limited resources [41], and 3) a stacked LSTM autoencoder
(64-unit hidden layers, sequence length = 10) specifically engineered to extract temporal
patterns from network traffic streams, demonstrating particular efficacy against DDoS attacks
(22% false negative reduction versus non-temporal baselines). This tripartite architecture,
illustrated in Figure 1, achieves comprehensive threat coverage while maintaining the
computational efficiency required for edge deployment through careful dimensionality
management (PCA + autoencoder preprocessing) and federated optimization.
The implementation details of each component reflect both algorithmic best practices and
IoT-specific optimizations: a) Random Forest employs scikit-learn’s histogram-based split
finding for 3.2 × speedup on edge hardware; b) Isolation Forest implements the extended
iForest algorithm for streaming data support; and c) the LSTM autoencoder uses CuDNN
kernels when GPU-accelerated nodes are available.
Figure 1. Proposed ML Framework Architecture as described in Section III-B, illustrating the
4-phase integration of Random Forest, Isolation Forest, and LSTM autoencoder components.
3.3. Training and Optimization
The framework’s training pipeline incorporates three key optimization strategies to enhance
security and efficiency. Federated learning (FL) was implemented across Raspberry Pi 4 edge
nodes, enabling distributed model training that reduces cloud dependency by 40% while
preserving data privacy through localized processing. To defend against adversarial evasion,
the models underwent robust training using Fast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM)-resistant
architectures, reducing attack success rates from 32% to 8%. Bayesian approaches to
hyperparameter optimization with F1-score maximization in the objective function
exhaustively trail over 200 parameter combinations to realize detection performance. We
used Bayesian methods for hyperparameter tuning, which helps adjust settings by modeling
the F1-score as a Gaussian process. This method cut down the search space by 60%
compared to grid search and found the best configurations, like using 100 trees for Random
Forest and 64-unit LSTM layers, in just 200 iterations while keeping within the limits of edge
devices [42]. This multiple-faceted approach is intentionally designed to overcome the most
significant constraints of the IoT/IIoT. The FL satisfies privacy compliance in distributed
industrial environments; the models are hardened against the evolving threat vectors by
adversarial training, and optimum algorithmic performance without transcending the
computational limits of the edge devices is ensured by using coherent Bayesian optimization.
Hyperparameters include Random Forest (100 trees, Gini impurity), LSTM autoencoder (64-
unit hidden layer, Adam optimizer, learning rate = 0.001), and Isolation Forest
(contamination factor = 0.01).
3.4. Experimental Setup and Ethical Considerations
Evaluation of the tasks was carried out in a hardware testbed with Raspberry Pi 4 units (4 GB
RAM) for the edge deployment and NVIDIA Jetson TX2 modules as the gateway nodes, thus
depicting realistic constraints of an IoT/IIoT infrastructure. System performance was
evaluated in terms of three criteria, namely F1-score for detection accuracy, inference latency
(in milliseconds), and energy usage (in Joules per inference). In consideration of ethical
principles, all datasets that had been acquired were subject to a stringent anonymization
process preceding any analysis, and adversarial testing was carried out strictly in isolated
sandbox environments, all with strict network segmentation controls. The experimental
design thus enabled comprehensive evaluation and demonstration of the operational
capability of the framework while adhering to security best practices such that data integrity
is secured throughout the testing process.

4. Results
4.1. Detection Accuracy Performance
The proposed framework achieves state-of-the-art performance (Table 1) with a 96.2% F1-
score, demonstrating significant improvements over existing approaches: CNN-LSTM
(92.7%) [28], SVM (88.1%) [24], and Snort IDS (78.5%) [22]. Comprehensive evaluation
across multiple metrics including a low false positive rate (1.8%), real-time latency (14.5
ms), and energy efficiency (0.42 Joules/inference) confirms its balanced detection capability.
Precision-recall analysis (Figure 2) and energy-accuracy Pareto fronts (Figure 3) further
validate superior performance trade-offs compared to GAN-based and transformer
models [20]. Notably, the LSTM autoencoder component excels in temporal attack detection,
achieving 98.3% recall for DDoS threats. As illustrated in Figure 4’s cross-dataset
comparison, the hybrid architecture consistently outperforms alternatives, effectively
addressing both known attack signatures and novel anomalies while maintaining
computational efficiency.
Table 1. Comparative analysis of anomaly detection models.
 Model F1-Score (%) False Positive Rate (%) Latency (ms) Energy (J
Proposed Framework 96.2 1.8 14.5
CNN-LSTM [28] 92.7 3.1 28.3
SVM [24] 88.1 5.6 9.2
Snort (IDS) [22] 78.5 8.9 2.1
The experimental results yielded three key findings that demonstrate the effectiveness of the
proposed framework. First, the hybrid approach combining ensemble methods with LSTM
architecture achieved an optimal balance between detection accuracy (96.2% F1-score) and
false alarm reduction (1.8% FPR), significantly outperforming single-algorithm approaches.
Second, through careful lightweight optimization, the framework-maintained edge
compatibility with inference latency below 15 ms on Raspberry Pi devices while preserving
detection performance, making it practical for resource-constrained IoT environments.
Finally, the integration of SHAP explainability and adversarial training techniques successfully
addressed two critical operational requirements: providing interpretable detection decisions
with >90% analyst confidence while improving resilience against evasion attacks (reducing
success rates from 32% to 8%) [37] [44], thereby
Figure 2. Performance comparison of Anomaly Detection Methods.
Figure 3. Performance comparison of Anomaly Detection Methods.
Figure 4. Bar plot comparison across datasets.
enhancing both the transparency and robustness of the security system in real-world
deployments. These findings collectively validate the framework’s ability to meet the complex
demands of modern IoT/IIoT cybersecurity.
4.2. Computational Efficiency Analysis
The framework demonstrated significant improvements in computational efficiency through
its edge-optimized design. Deployment on edge devices achieved an inference latency of just
14.5 ms, representing a 48.76% reduction compared to cloud-based processing, enabling
real-time threat detection capabilities critical for time-sensitive IoT applications. Furthermore,
the implementation of federated learning yielded substantial energy savings, reducing
consumption by 40.5% through distributed model training and localized data processing. The
associated gains in efficiency are visually summarized via a grouped bar plot in Figure 5,
which compares the latency and energy consumption breakdown of various deployment
scenarios. The results validate that the framework indeed tries to find a balance between
detection performance and resource efficiency, therefore making it well suited for resource-
constrained IoT environments where fast response and lower power consumption are critical
operational constraints.
Figure 5. Latency and energy consumption breakdown.
The multi-panel technical comparison illustrates and gives a clear picture of framework
performance enhancement in regards to key operational metrics. The latency analysis reports
a 66% improvement as processing moves from a cloud scenario to the edge where measured
values fall consistently below the required 15 ms threshold for real-time processing
applications in time-sensitive IoTs. The detailed pie chart effectively conveys the energy
consumption profile, namely, the 40.5% savings from the distributed structure of federated
learning. The horizontal bar graphs further quantify the reduced dependency of the system
components on the cloud in demonstrating the edge-based processing of the framework.
These three visualizations communicate three important advantages: 1) Real-time processing
through edge optimization; 2) Energy efficiency gained by implementation of federated
learning; 3) Reduced dependency on cloud infrastructure for maintaining detection accuracy,
all key features for actually deploying IoT security in resource-constrained environments.
4.3. Robustness and Explainability Performance
Additionally, creating one of the most significant breakthroughs directed towards adversarial
robustness and decision interpretability in its primary concerns to ML-based security systems.
This implementation of FGSM-resistant models reduced the success rate of adversarial
evasion attacks from 32 to 8 percent thus making the system stronger against lethal threats.
To further complement this security strength, the SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations)
values provided interpretability around detection decisions with over 90% confidence among
security analysts, thereby allowing operational transparency for validation. The dual
advancements are summarized in the line plot of adversarial attack resilience in Figure 6,
showcasing the increasing strength of the framework against reduced detection accuracy with
increasing levels of attack. Subsequently, these results corroborate how well the system
positions itself in the juxtaposition of attack resistance and explainable AI, making it both
technically sound and operationally practical for real-world IoT security deployments, where
trust and reliability matter.
Figure 6. Showing line plot of adversarial attack resilience.
4.4. Robustness and Operational Trust
The framework demonstrates robust security through two measurable advances: 1)
adversarial attack resistance, reducing evasion success rates from 32% to 8% via FGSM-
resistant training, and 2) interpretable decision-making with SHAP (SHapley Additive
exPlanations) values exceeding 90% confidence. Feature importance analysis on the TON-IoT
dataset revealed packet-frequency variance (SHAP = 0.62) and TCP flag anomalies (SHAP =
0.41) as critical indicators for DDoS detection, enabling security operators to validate alerts
and refine models using SHAP force plots (Figure 7). These plots distinctly differentiate
attack patterns: packet-frequency dominance in DDoS, API call sequences in malware, and
authentication failures in unauthorized access attempts. Operational testing exposed that
85% of false positives originated from industrial sensor noise (e.g., voltage spikes beyond
±2.3σ), prompting rule-based pre-filtering that enhanced precision by 6.2%. This synergy of
adversarial robustness (Section IV-D) and explainability addresses a key limitation of black-
box ML by allowing: 1) Real-time verification of threat alerts against feature contribution
patterns; 2) Iterative refinement of detection rules without compromising model
integrity [33]. The framework’s practical efficacy is further evidenced in precision-recall
analysis (Figure 3), particularly for DDoS detection (AUC = 0.983), where the LSTM
autoencoder’s temporal processing minimizes false positives in streaming data. By unifying
hardened security (8% evasion susceptibility) with operational transparency (>90% SHAP
confidence), this approach bridges the gap between enterprise-grade protection and
deployable IoT solutions, setting a new standard for adversarial-resistant, interpretable ML in
cybersecurity. We used SHAP values to measure how interpretable our model is. SHAP helps
explain why the model makes certain decisions by looking at input features, kind of like a
game theory approach. This gave us over 90% confidence in spotting key indicators, like
packet-frequency changes and TCP flags. It also helped us get past some of the black-box
issues, allowing security analysts to check alerts against these feature patterns (see Figure
7) [44].
Figure 7. Security Robustness Analysis (see Section IV-D), showing adversarial attack
success rates and SHAP interpretability metrics across threat categories.
4.5. Ablation Study Results
The ablation study quantitatively validates the framework’s architectural choices by
systematically disabling key components: 1) removing the LSTM autoencoder degraded DDoS
detection recall by 22% (from 98.3% to 76.3%), confirming its critical role in temporal
pattern recognition; 2) disabling adversarial training increased evasion attack success rates
from 8% to 25%, demonstrating the necessity of defensive distillation; and 3) eliminating
federated learning increased energy consumption by 65% (0.42J to 0.69 J per inference),
highlighting its efficiency benefits for edge deployment. As detailed in Figure 8, these results
prove that each component contributes non-redundant value to the framework’s state-of-the-
art performance, with the complete system outperforming partial configurations by an
average of 18.7% across all metrics.
Figure 8. Stacked bar plot comparing component contributions.
To rigorously evaluate the framework’s design choices, we conducted a comprehensive
ablation study that systematically assessed the impact of each key component. The results
demonstrated that the LSTM autoencoder plays a critical role in temporal pattern recognition,
as its removal led to a 22% decline in time-series attack detection accuracy. Similarly,
disabling adversarial training substantially weakened the system’s defenses, allowing evasion
attack success rates to rise to 25% compared to the enhanced model’s 8% rate. The study
further revealed that abandoning federated learning in favor of centralized training incurred
significant energy costs, increasing consumption by 65%, which highlights FL’s crucial role in
maintaining the framework’s energy efficiency. These findings collectively validate our
architectural decisions, confirming that each component, temporal modeling with LSTM,
adversarial robustness measures, and distributed learning through FL, makes essential, non-
redundant contributions to the framework’s overall performance, security, and operational
efficiency in IoT environments.
Figure 9. Component importance analysis (Section IV-E) showing performance degradation
when removing 1) LSTM temporal processing, 2) adversarial training, or 3) federated learning
infrastructure.
The component impact analysis (Figure 9) demonstrates three key findings: 1) The LSTM’s
temporal processing accounts for 62% of DDoS detection capability; 2) Adversarial training
provides 3.4 × greater evasion resistance than baseline models; 3) Federated learning
reduces per-node energy costs by 40.5% compared to centralized processing.

5. Conclusions
5.1. Summary of Contributions
The proposed hybrid ML framework integrates Random Forest (for known attack detection),
Isolation Forest (for zero-day anomalies), and LSTM autoencoders (for temporal pattern
analysis) to establish new benchmarks in IoT/IIoT anomaly detection. Comprehensive
evaluation demonstrates three key advancements: 1) State-of-the-art performance with a
96.2% F1-score at 14.5 ms latency (17.7% improvement over traditional IDS
systems, Table 2). 2) Robust adversarial resistance through FGSM-trained architectures that
reduce evasion attacks from 32% to 8%. 3) Operational practicality with federated learning
achieving 40.5% energy reduction (0.42 Joules/inference) on edge devices while maintaining
cloud-comparable accuracy (±2%). The framework demonstrates superior performance
across three critical dimensions of IoT/IIoT security. In detection capability, it achieves
96.4% accuracy for DDoS attacks, 95.1% for malware, and 93.8% for APTs outperforming
CNN-LSTM (92.7%) and SVM (88.1%) baselines (Figures 3-4). Its edge-optimized design
ensures resource efficiency, delivering real-time responsiveness (14.5 ms latency) with 66%
lower bandwidth usage compared to cloud-dependent solutions. For operational trust, SHAP
analysis provides >90% interpretability (Figure 7), while ablation studies confirm the
necessity of each component, showing a 22% recall drop when excluding LSTM autoencoders
and a threefold increase in evasion risk without adversarial training. Together, these
advances resolve the IoT security trilemma by simultaneously optimizing accuracy, efficiency,
and deployability, with reproducible implementations (600 DPI vector graphics) facilitating
industrial adoption.
5.2. Practical Implications
The research outcomes have immediate practical value for industrial IoT deployments. The
framework provides reliable, real-time protection for critical infrastructure with its sub-15 ms
detection capability, effectively preventing potentially catastrophic operational disruptions.
Notably, the system achieves this while maintaining exceptional energy efficiency (<0.42
Joules per inference), though this does require carefully balanced trade-offs between the
computational demands of deep learning components and the resource constraints of edge
devices. These characteristics make the solution particularly suitable for Industry 4.0
applications where both security responsiveness and energy efficiency are paramount
concerns for large-scale, distributed deployments.
5.3. Future Directions
Table 2. Comprehensive performance summary of the proposed framework (see Section V-
A), comparing detection accuracy (F1-score), computational efficiency (latency/energy), and
robustness metrics against baseline systems.
Proposed Traditional IDS
Metric SVM Baseline Improvem
Framework (Snort
Detection Accuracy
F1-score (%) 96.6 78.5 88.1
Recall (DDoS) (%) 99.3 62.3 85.6
False Positive Rate (%) 1.8 8.9 5.6
 Computational Efficiency
Latency (ms) 14.5 2.1 9.2 −48.
Energy (Joules/inference) 0.42 0.12 0.35 +16
Robustness
Adversarial Attack Success Rate (%) 8 32 (baseline) 25
SHAP Interpretability Confidence (%) >90 N/A N/A
Building on Figure 3’s energy-accuracy trade-offs and Table 2’s robustness metrics, three
key directions emerge: 1) Quantum ML acceleration to reduce the 14.5 ms latency by 30% -
50%; 2) Expanded adversarial testing against physical-world attack vectors [49]; 3)
Standardization of the evaluation benchmarks demonstrated in Figure 4 and Figure 7.
Future work will look into testing for real-world attack methods, like sensor spoofing and
electromagnetic interference, to see how well the framework stands up against hardware-
related threats. This fits with the need for strong security in cyber-physical systems in today’s
tech landscape.

Acknowledgements
The authors sincerely thank their academic colleagues for their invaluable support, including
Prof. Dr. M. S. Fofanah (DVC, BO Campus), Dr. Ibrahim Dumbuya (HOD, Industrial
Technology), Ing. Dr. Maurice Sesay (PhD, Postdoc, MSLIE), Dr. M. Jalloh (University
Registrar), Dr. M. Blango (Dean, School of Technology), and Dr. John Koroma (H.O.D, Basic
Science). Special appreciation also goes to faculty members from Nankai University, Njala
University, and Xi’an Jiaotong University.
We also extend deep gratitude to Ubuntu Afrika for their pivotal role in our technical growth.
Their training programs in software development and research were essential to this
publication, providing both foundational skills and ongoing support.

Authors’ Contributions
Name of Author Contribution
Mohamed Koroma (Ing.) Conceptualization, methodology, model design, writing (original draft), s
Alhaji Mansaray Data curation, software implementation, federated learning optimization,
Yahya Labay Kamara Formal analysis, adversarial training, SHAP interpretability, visualization
Chernor Gurasiue Jalloh Experimental setup, hardware deployment, latency/energy metrics, ablatio
Ibrahim Sorie Ojasy Bah Literature review, dataset preprocessing, performance benchmarking, edit
Conflicts of Interest
Authors declared no competing interests exist during and after this research work.
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