The development of medical data and resources has become essential for enhancing patient outcomes and operational efficiency in an age when digital innovation in healthcare is becoming more important. The rapid growth of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is changing healthcare data management, but it also brings serious issues like data privacy, malicious attacks, and service quality. In this study, we present EdgeGuard, a novel decentralized architecture that combines blockchain technology, federated learning, and edge computing to address those challenges and coordinate medical resources across IoMT networks. EdgeGuard uses a privacy-preserving federated learning approach to keep sensitive medical data local and to promote collaborative model training, solving essential issues. To prevent data modification and unauthorized access, it uses a blockchain-based access control and integrity verification system. EdgeGuard uses edge computing to improve system scalability and efficiency by offloading computational tasks from IoMT devices with limited resources. We have made several technological advances, including a lightweight blockchain consensus mechanism designed for IoMT networks, an adaptive edge resource allocation method based on reinforcement learning, and a federated learning algorithm optimized for medical data with differential privacy. We also create an access control system based on smart contracts and a secure multi-party computing protocol for model updates. EdgeGuard outperforms existing solutions in terms of computational performance, data value, and privacy protection across a wide range of real-world medical datasets. This work enhances safe, effective, and privacy-preserving medical data management in IoMT ecosystems while maintaining outstanding standards for data security and resource efficiency, enabling large-scale collaborative learning in healthcare.

In recent years, a large number of Internet of Things (IoT)-based products, solutions, and services have emerged from the industry to enter the marketplace, improving the quality of service. With the wide adoption of IoT-based systems/applications in real scenarios, the privacy preservation (PP) topic has garnered significant attention from both academia and industry; as a result, many PP solutions have been developed, tailored to IoT-based systems/applications. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of state-of-the-art (SOTA) PP solutions recently developed for IoT-based systems and applications. We delve into SOTA PP methods that preserve IoT data privacy and categorize them into two scenarios: on-device and cloud computing. We categorize the existing PP solutions into privacy-by-design (PbD), such as federated learning (FL) and split learning (SL), and privacy engineering solutions (PESs), such as differential privacy (DP) and anonymization, and we map them to IoT-driven applications/systems. We further summarize the latest SOTA methods that employ multiple PP techniques like $ϵ$-DP + anonymization or $ϵ$-DP + blockchain + FL (rather than employing just one) to preserve IoT data privacy in both PES and PbD categories. Lastly, we highlight quantum-based methods devised to enhance the security and/or privacy of IoT data in real-world scenarios. We discuss the status of current research in PP techniques for IoT data within the scope established for this paper, along with opportunities for further research and development. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that provides comprehensive knowledge about PP topics centered on the IoT, and which can provide a solid foundation for future research.

Ensuring reliable and efficient transportation in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) requires effective model training across distributed Consumer Internet of Vehicles (CIOV)-based Transportation CPS (TCPS). However, the high mobility of transportation terminals and frequent domain switching during training degrade global model accuracy, while malicious terminals uploading erroneous data further compromise system reliability. To address these challenges, this paper proposes Fed-ECC, a two-tier federated learning (FL)-based edge collaborative computing mechanism for dynamic CIOV-based TCPS. The first tier employs a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based clustering algorithm to form edge collaborative computing domains, optimizing terminal selection based on mobility, computational capability, and reliability. The second tier integrates a semi-asynchronous local aggregation mechanism with adaptive aggregation factors and an asynchronous regional aggregation mechanism based on data volume, improving aggregation efficiency and model convergence. Simulation results demonstrate that Fed-ECC enhances global model accuracy by 58.7%, accelerates convergence speed by 57.6%, and achieves 95% accuracy in traffic safety tasks, significantly improving obstacle detection and service reliability. These findings underscore the effectiveness, scalability, and robustness of Fed-ECC in addressing the challenges of high-mobility, large-scale CIOV-based TCPS.

Secure resource management (SRM) within a cloud computing environment is a critical yet infrequently studied research topic. This article provides a comprehensive survey and comparative performance evaluation of potential cyber threat countermeasure strategies that address security challenges during cloud workload execution and resource management. Cybersecurity is explored specifically in the context of cloud resource management, with an emphasis on identifying the associated challenges. The cyber threat countermeasure methods are categorized into three classes: defensive strategies, mitigating strategies, and hybrid strategies. The existing countermeasure strategies belonging to each class are thoroughly discussed and compared. In addition to conceptual and theoretical analysis, the leading countermeasure strategies within these categories are implemented on a common platform and examined using two real-world virtual machine (VM) data traces. Based on this comprehensive study and performance evaluation, this article discusses the tradeoffs among these countermeasure strategies and their utility, providing imperative concluding remarks on the holistic study of cloud cyber threat countermeasures and SRM. Furthermore, the study suggests future methodologies that could effectively address the emerging challenges of secure cloud resource management.

To alleviate the substantial local training burden on clients in the federated learning (FL) process, this paper proposes a more efficient approach based on hybrid federated and centralized learning (HFCL), leveraging the Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) environment within wireless communication networks. Considering the existence of heterogeneous data types with different privacy levels -such as i) sensitive data, which can not be exposed, and ii) less-sensitive data, which can be exposed for centralized learning (CL)-we formulate an optimization problem aimed at achieving a balance between i) total latency, including computation and communication, and ii) the training burden on the MEC server. This balance is achieved by adjusting the set of participants in FL, taking into account client selection under different privacy levels. A multi-objective optimization problem is designed using mixed-integer nonlinear programming, which is generally recognized as NP-hard. We employ relaxation techniques in combination with the Mutas & Simulated Annealing Heuristic algorithm to develop a near-optimal yet practical algorithm. Our numerical and simulation results reveal that the proposed scheme effectively achieves a global model by striking a balance between the total time required for model convergence and the computational load on the MEC server. Furthermore, experimental results on three well-known real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed scheme maintains an acceptable level of accuracy and loss.

This paper addresses the problem of side lobe interference in 5G networks by proposing a unique collaborative beamforming strategy based on Deep Q-Network (DQN) reinforcement learning. Our method, which operates in the sub-6 GHz band, maximizes beam steering and power management by using a two-antenna system with DQN-controlled phase shifters. We provide an OFDM cellular network environment where inter-cell interference is managed while many base stations serve randomly dispersed customers. In order to reduce interference strength and improve signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), the DQN agent learns to modify the interference angle. Our model integrates experience replay memory with a long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network for time series prediction to enhance learning stability. The outcomes of our simulations show that our suggested DQN approach works noticeably better than current DQN and Q-learning methods. In particular, our technique reaches a maximum of 29.18 dB and a minimum of 5.15 dB, whereas the other approaches only manage 0.77–27.04 dB. Additionally, we significantly decreased the average interference level to 5.42 dB compared to competing approaches of 38.84 dB and 34.12 dB. The average sum-rate capacity is also increased to 3.90 by the suggested strategy, outperforming previous approaches. These findings demonstrate how well our cooperative beamforming method reduces interference and improves overall network performance in 5G systems.