GAN-AIIPot: GAN-based cyber deception for probing attacks on IoT devices
GAN-AIIPot: GAN-based cyber deception for probing attacks on IoT devices
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging technology that has transformed the global network by interconnecting Internet-enabled devices, people, intelligent things, and valuable data, leading to significant advancements in various domains. As IoT devices become more interwoven into our daily lives, the security of these devices is a huge concern. Many IoT devices are connected to the Internet, making them open to security threats. Researchers have been exploring new methods for detecting and mitigating cyberattacks on IoT devices. One promising approach is the use of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) for cyber deception. Cyber deception is a cybersecurity technique used to mislead attackers and hackers from their intended targets. GANs have shown promise in the field of cybersecurity for creating realistic synthetic data to test the security of systems. In the case of probing attacks on IoT devices, GAN-based cyber deception can be used to create fake devices/information that can mimic real IoT devices and deceive attackers into thinking that they have successfully compromised a target. This paper proposes a novel GAN-based cyber deception technique called GAN-AIIPot, which is designed for probe attacks on IoT devices. GAN-AIIPot is an extended version of AIIPot that adds a GAN model on top of the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from the Transformers (BERT) model used in AIIPot. We evaluate our approach using a publicly available IoT dataset and show that GAN-AIIPot captures more sophisticated attacks and improves session length with attackers, showing the effectiveness of the deception technique compared to the existing honeypots. We believe that such a solution can enhance the security of IoT devices and protect them from malicious actors.
Generative adversarial networks (GAN), Internet of Things (IoT) devices, honeypot, machine learning, probe attacks
417-431
Mfogo, Volviane Saphir
4d961a33-19af-4e4d-a2a8-5b7be36bec2b
Zemkoho, Alain
30c79e30-9879-48bd-8d0b-e2fbbc01269e
Njilla, Laurent
e3080135-a677-4208-ada9-f1bc90a36118
Nkenlifack, Marcellin Julius
24eb7ccc-d341-49ea-b004-b60ba4c1dd0d
Kamhoua, Charles A.
192fa26f-70a6-4680-a2f4-f49047d2430b
2026
Mfogo, Volviane Saphir
4d961a33-19af-4e4d-a2a8-5b7be36bec2b
Zemkoho, Alain
30c79e30-9879-48bd-8d0b-e2fbbc01269e
Njilla, Laurent
e3080135-a677-4208-ada9-f1bc90a36118
Nkenlifack, Marcellin Julius
24eb7ccc-d341-49ea-b004-b60ba4c1dd0d
Kamhoua, Charles A.
192fa26f-70a6-4680-a2f4-f49047d2430b
Mfogo, Volviane Saphir, Zemkoho, Alain, Njilla, Laurent, Nkenlifack, Marcellin Julius and Kamhoua, Charles A.
(2026)
GAN-AIIPot: GAN-based cyber deception for probing attacks on IoT devices.
IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, 23, .
(doi:10.1109/TNSM.2025.3632667).
Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging technology that has transformed the global network by interconnecting Internet-enabled devices, people, intelligent things, and valuable data, leading to significant advancements in various domains. As IoT devices become more interwoven into our daily lives, the security of these devices is a huge concern. Many IoT devices are connected to the Internet, making them open to security threats. Researchers have been exploring new methods for detecting and mitigating cyberattacks on IoT devices. One promising approach is the use of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) for cyber deception. Cyber deception is a cybersecurity technique used to mislead attackers and hackers from their intended targets. GANs have shown promise in the field of cybersecurity for creating realistic synthetic data to test the security of systems. In the case of probing attacks on IoT devices, GAN-based cyber deception can be used to create fake devices/information that can mimic real IoT devices and deceive attackers into thinking that they have successfully compromised a target. This paper proposes a novel GAN-based cyber deception technique called GAN-AIIPot, which is designed for probe attacks on IoT devices. GAN-AIIPot is an extended version of AIIPot that adds a GAN model on top of the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from the Transformers (BERT) model used in AIIPot. We evaluate our approach using a publicly available IoT dataset and show that GAN-AIIPot captures more sophisticated attacks and improves session length with attackers, showing the effectiveness of the deception technique compared to the existing honeypots. We believe that such a solution can enhance the security of IoT devices and protect them from malicious actors.
Text
GAN-AIIPot GAN-based Cyber Deception forProbing Attacks on IoT Devices
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
e-pub ahead of print date: 13 November 2025
Published date: 2026
Additional Information:
Publisher Copyright:
© 2004-2012 IEEE.
Keywords:
Generative adversarial networks (GAN), Internet of Things (IoT) devices, honeypot, machine learning, probe attacks
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 509519
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/509519
ISSN: 1932-4537
PURE UUID: bec16fa4-f760-4ab5-b4d5-61cbc6734231
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Date deposited: 24 Feb 2026 18:02
Last modified: 25 Feb 2026 02:47
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Contributors
Author:
Volviane Saphir Mfogo
Author:
Laurent Njilla
Author:
Marcellin Julius Nkenlifack
Author:
Charles A. Kamhoua
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