A Scalable Approach to Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things Security: Evaluating Adaptive Self-Adjusting Memory K-Nearest Neighbor for Zero-Day Attack Detection

The Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have drastically transformed industries by enhancing efficiency and flexibility but have also introduced substantial cybersecurity risks. The rise of zero-day attacks, which exploit unknown vulnerabilities, poses significant threa...

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Main Authors: Promise Ricardo Agbedanu, Shanchieh Jay Yang, Richard Musabe, Ignace Gatare, James Rwigema
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-01-01
Series:Sensors
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/1/216
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author Promise Ricardo Agbedanu
Shanchieh Jay Yang
Richard Musabe
Ignace Gatare
James Rwigema
author_facet Promise Ricardo Agbedanu
Shanchieh Jay Yang
Richard Musabe
Ignace Gatare
James Rwigema
author_sort Promise Ricardo Agbedanu
collection DOAJ
description The Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have drastically transformed industries by enhancing efficiency and flexibility but have also introduced substantial cybersecurity risks. The rise of zero-day attacks, which exploit unknown vulnerabilities, poses significant threats to these interconnected systems. Traditional signature-based intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are insufficient for detecting such attacks due to their reliance on pre-defined attack signatures. This study investigates the effectiveness of Adaptive SAMKNN, an adaptive k-nearest neighbor with self-adjusting memory (SAM), in detecting and responding to various attack types in Internet of Things (IoT) environments. Through extensive testing, our proposed method demonstrates superior memory efficiency, with a memory footprint as low as 0.05 MB, while maintaining high accuracy and F1 scores across all datasets. The proposed method also recorded a detection rate of 1.00 across all simulated zero-day attacks. In scalability tests, the proposed technique sustains its performance even as data volume scales up to 500,000 samples, maintaining low CPU and memory consumption. However, while it excels under gradual, recurring, and incremental drift, its sensitivity to sudden drift highlights an area for further improvement. This study confirms the feasibility of Adaptive SAMKNN as a real-time, scalable, and memory-efficient solution for IoT and IIoT security, providing reliable anomaly detection without overwhelming computational resources. Our proposed method has the potential to significantly increase the security of IoT and IIoT environments by enabling the real-time, scalable, and efficient detection of sophisticated cyber threats, thereby safeguarding critical interconnected systems against emerging vulnerabilities.
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spelling doaj-art-651abdaea1484916a54b8588b66abe922025-01-10T13:21:15ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202025-01-0125121610.3390/s25010216A Scalable Approach to Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things Security: Evaluating Adaptive Self-Adjusting Memory K-Nearest Neighbor for Zero-Day Attack DetectionPromise Ricardo Agbedanu0Shanchieh Jay Yang1Richard Musabe2Ignace Gatare3James Rwigema4African Centre of Excellence for Internet of Things, University of Rwanda, Kigali P.O. Box 4285, RwandaInstitute for Informatics and Applied Technology, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99258, USACollege of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, Kigali P.O. Box 4285, RwandaCollege of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, Kigali P.O. Box 4285, RwandaAfrican Centre of Excellence for Internet of Things, University of Rwanda, Kigali P.O. Box 4285, RwandaThe Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have drastically transformed industries by enhancing efficiency and flexibility but have also introduced substantial cybersecurity risks. The rise of zero-day attacks, which exploit unknown vulnerabilities, poses significant threats to these interconnected systems. Traditional signature-based intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are insufficient for detecting such attacks due to their reliance on pre-defined attack signatures. This study investigates the effectiveness of Adaptive SAMKNN, an adaptive k-nearest neighbor with self-adjusting memory (SAM), in detecting and responding to various attack types in Internet of Things (IoT) environments. Through extensive testing, our proposed method demonstrates superior memory efficiency, with a memory footprint as low as 0.05 MB, while maintaining high accuracy and F1 scores across all datasets. The proposed method also recorded a detection rate of 1.00 across all simulated zero-day attacks. In scalability tests, the proposed technique sustains its performance even as data volume scales up to 500,000 samples, maintaining low CPU and memory consumption. However, while it excels under gradual, recurring, and incremental drift, its sensitivity to sudden drift highlights an area for further improvement. This study confirms the feasibility of Adaptive SAMKNN as a real-time, scalable, and memory-efficient solution for IoT and IIoT security, providing reliable anomaly detection without overwhelming computational resources. Our proposed method has the potential to significantly increase the security of IoT and IIoT environments by enabling the real-time, scalable, and efficient detection of sophisticated cyber threats, thereby safeguarding critical interconnected systems against emerging vulnerabilities.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/1/216iInternet of ThingsIndustrial Internet of Thingscybersecurityonline machine learningzero-day attacksintrusion detection system
spellingShingle Promise Ricardo Agbedanu
Shanchieh Jay Yang
Richard Musabe
Ignace Gatare
James Rwigema
A Scalable Approach to Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things Security: Evaluating Adaptive Self-Adjusting Memory K-Nearest Neighbor for Zero-Day Attack Detection
Sensors
iInternet of Things
Industrial Internet of Things
cybersecurity
online machine learning
zero-day attacks
intrusion detection system
title A Scalable Approach to Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things Security: Evaluating Adaptive Self-Adjusting Memory K-Nearest Neighbor for Zero-Day Attack Detection
title_full A Scalable Approach to Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things Security: Evaluating Adaptive Self-Adjusting Memory K-Nearest Neighbor for Zero-Day Attack Detection
title_fullStr A Scalable Approach to Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things Security: Evaluating Adaptive Self-Adjusting Memory K-Nearest Neighbor for Zero-Day Attack Detection
title_full_unstemmed A Scalable Approach to Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things Security: Evaluating Adaptive Self-Adjusting Memory K-Nearest Neighbor for Zero-Day Attack Detection
title_short A Scalable Approach to Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things Security: Evaluating Adaptive Self-Adjusting Memory K-Nearest Neighbor for Zero-Day Attack Detection
title_sort scalable approach to internet of things and industrial internet of things security evaluating adaptive self adjusting memory k nearest neighbor for zero day attack detection
topic iInternet of Things
Industrial Internet of Things
cybersecurity
online machine learning
zero-day attacks
intrusion detection system
url https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/1/216
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