Adaptive Intrusion Detection for Evolving RPL IoT Attacks Using Incremental Learning

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bas, Sumeyye, Kaya, Kiymet, Ak, Elif, Oguducu, Sule Gunduz
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911533372538880
author Bas, Sumeyye
Kaya, Kiymet
Ak, Elif
Oguducu, Sule Gunduz
author_facet Bas, Sumeyye
Kaya, Kiymet
Ak, Elif
Oguducu, Sule Gunduz
contents The routing protocol for low-power and lossy networks (RPL) has become the de facto routing standard for resource-constrained IoT systems, but its lightweight design exposes critical vulnerabilities to a wide range of routing-layer attacks such as hello flood, decreased rank, and version number manipulation. Traditional countermeasures, including protocol-level modifications and machine learning classifiers, can achieve high accuracy against known threats, yet they fail when confronted with novel or zero-day attacks unless fully retrained, an approach that is impractical for dynamic IoT environments. In this paper, we investigate incremental learning as a practical and adaptive strategy for intrusion detection in RPL-based networks. We systematically evaluate five model families, including ensemble models and deep learning models. Our analysis highlights that incremental learning not only restores detection performance on new attack classes but also mitigates catastrophic forgetting of previously learned threats, all while reducing training time compared to full retraining. By combining five diverse models with attack-specific analysis, forgetting behavior, and time efficiency, this study provides systematic evidence that incremental learning offers a scalable pathway to maintain resilient intrusion detection in evolving RPL-based IoT networks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_11464
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Adaptive Intrusion Detection for Evolving RPL IoT Attacks Using Incremental Learning
Bas, Sumeyye
Kaya, Kiymet
Ak, Elif
Oguducu, Sule Gunduz
Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
The routing protocol for low-power and lossy networks (RPL) has become the de facto routing standard for resource-constrained IoT systems, but its lightweight design exposes critical vulnerabilities to a wide range of routing-layer attacks such as hello flood, decreased rank, and version number manipulation. Traditional countermeasures, including protocol-level modifications and machine learning classifiers, can achieve high accuracy against known threats, yet they fail when confronted with novel or zero-day attacks unless fully retrained, an approach that is impractical for dynamic IoT environments. In this paper, we investigate incremental learning as a practical and adaptive strategy for intrusion detection in RPL-based networks. We systematically evaluate five model families, including ensemble models and deep learning models. Our analysis highlights that incremental learning not only restores detection performance on new attack classes but also mitigates catastrophic forgetting of previously learned threats, all while reducing training time compared to full retraining. By combining five diverse models with attack-specific analysis, forgetting behavior, and time efficiency, this study provides systematic evidence that incremental learning offers a scalable pathway to maintain resilient intrusion detection in evolving RPL-based IoT networks.
title Adaptive Intrusion Detection for Evolving RPL IoT Attacks Using Incremental Learning
topic Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.11464