Research Article

An Anomaly-based Intrusion Detection System for IoT environments using autoencoder neural networks and TinyML

by  Hiba Kandil, Wiam Bouimejane, Mohammed Mouhcine, Hafssa Benaboud
journal cover
International Journal of Computer Applications
Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA
Volume 187 - Issue 59
Published: November 2025
Authors: Hiba Kandil, Wiam Bouimejane, Mohammed Mouhcine, Hafssa Benaboud
10.5120/ijca2025926000
PDF

Hiba Kandil, Wiam Bouimejane, Mohammed Mouhcine, Hafssa Benaboud . An Anomaly-based Intrusion Detection System for IoT environments using autoencoder neural networks and TinyML. International Journal of Computer Applications. 187, 59 (November 2025), 9-15. DOI=10.5120/ijca2025926000

                        @article{ 10.5120/ijca2025926000,
                        author  = { Hiba Kandil,Wiam Bouimejane,Mohammed Mouhcine,Hafssa Benaboud },
                        title   = { An Anomaly-based Intrusion Detection System for IoT  environments using autoencoder neural networks and  TinyML },
                        journal = { International Journal of Computer Applications },
                        year    = { 2025 },
                        volume  = { 187 },
                        number  = { 59 },
                        pages   = { 9-15 },
                        doi     = { 10.5120/ijca2025926000 },
                        publisher = { Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA }
                        }
                        %0 Journal Article
                        %D 2025
                        %A Hiba Kandil
                        %A Wiam Bouimejane
                        %A Mohammed Mouhcine
                        %A Hafssa Benaboud
                        %T An Anomaly-based Intrusion Detection System for IoT  environments using autoencoder neural networks and  TinyML%T 
                        %J International Journal of Computer Applications
                        %V 187
                        %N 59
                        %P 9-15
                        %R 10.5120/ijca2025926000
                        %I Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA
Abstract

The scalable nature of IoT systems leads to continually evolving security challenges, threats, and device vulnerability to cyberattacks. The traditional Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) struggle with the resource-limited nature of IoT devices. However, Machine Learning (ML) techniques have appeared as a promising solution for IDS, offering several benefits. In this paper, we introduce an unsupervised Deep Learning model combined with TinyML principles for efficient deployment of Intrusion Detection Systems on IoT networks. The model is trained exclusively on normal network traffic and detects anomalies through reconstruction error. To enable deployment on constrained devices, the model is quantized and converted to Lite format, resulting in a lightweight version suitable for TinyML environments. Evaluation was conducted using the IoT-23 dataset and NS-3-based traffic simulation. The proposed system enables real-time, on-device threat detection while operating within the strict memory, latency, and energy constraints typical of embedded IoT environments.

References
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Index Terms
Computer Science
Information Sciences
No index terms available.
Keywords

Intrusion Detection System Autoencoder Neural Network IoT Security Deep Learning Unsupervised Learning TinyML.

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