Over the past two decades, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have emerged as critical components in various industries, integrating digital and physical elements to improve efficiency and automation, from smart manufacturing and autonomous vehicles to advanced healthcare devices. However, the increasing complexity of CPS and their deployment in highly dynamic contexts undermine user trust. This motivates the investigation of methods capable of generating explanations about the behavior of CPS. To this end, Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) methodologies show potential. However, these approaches do not consider contextual variables that a CPS may be subjected to (e.g., temperature, humidity), and the provided explanations are typically not actionable. In this article, we propose an Actionable Contextual Explanation System (ACES) that considers such contextual influences. Based on a user query about a behavioral attribute of a CPS (for example, vibrations and speed), ACES creates contextual explanations for the behavior of such a CPS considering its context. To generate contextual explanations, ACES uses a context model to discover sensors and actuators in the physical environment of a CPS and obtains time-series data from these devices. It then cross-correlates these time-series logs with the user-specified behavioral attribute of the CPS. Finally, ACES employs a counterfactual explanation method and takes user feedback to identify causal relationships between the contextual variables and the behavior of the CPS. We demonstrate our approach with a synthetic use case; the favorable results obtained, motivate the future deployment of ACES in real-world scenarios.

In recent years there is a surge of interest in the interpretability and explainability of AI systems, which is largely motivated by the need for ensuring the transparency and accountability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) operations, as well as by the need to minimize the cost and consequences of poor decisions. Another challenge that needs to be mentioned is the Cyber security attacks against AI infrastructures in manufacturing environments. This study examines eXplainable AI (XAI)-enhanced approaches against adversarial attacks for optimizing Cyber defense methods in manufacturing image classification tasks. The examined XAI methods were applied to an image classification task providing some insightful results regarding the utility of Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME), Saliency maps, and the Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-Cam) as methods to fortify a dataset against gradient evasion attacks. To this end, we “attacked” the XAI-enhanced Images and used them as input to the classifier to measure their robustness of it. Given the analyzed dataset, our research indicates that LIME-masked images are more robust to adversarial attacks. We additionally propose an Encoder-Decoder schema that timely predicts (decodes) the masked images, setting the proposed approach sufficient for a real-life problem.

In today s age of digital technology, ethical concerns regarding computing systems are increasing. While the focus of such concerns currently is on requirements for software, this article spotlights the hardware domain, specifically microchips. For example, the opaqueness of modern microchips raises security issues, as malicious actors can manipulate them, jeopardizing system integrity. As a consequence, governments invest substantially to facilitate a secure microchip supply chain. To combat the opaqueness of hardware, this article introduces the concept of Explainable Hardware (XHW). Inspired by and building on previous work on Explainable AI (XAI) and explainable software systems, we develop a framework for achieving XHW comprising relevant stakeholders, requirements they might have concerning hardware, and possible explainability approaches to meet these requirements. Through an exploratory survey among 18 hardware experts, we showcase applications of the framework and discover potential research gaps. Our work lays the foundation for future work and structured debates on XHW.

In the dynamic and ever-changing domain of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), the utmost importance lies in guaranteeing resilient and lucid security measures. This study highlights the necessity of implementing a Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) to enhance the security of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), hence departing from conventional perimeter defences that may expose vulnerabilities. The Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) paradigm requires a rigorous and continuous process of authenticating all network entities and communications. The accuracy of our methodology in detecting and identifying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is 84.59\%. This is achieved by utilizing Radio Frequency (RF) signals within a Deep Learning framework, a unique method. Precise identification is crucial in Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), as it determines network access. In addition, the use of eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) tools such as SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) and Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME) contributes to the improvement of the model s transparency and interpretability. Adherence to Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) standards guarantees that the classifications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are verifiable and comprehensible, enhancing security within the UAV field.

The procedure for obtaining an equivalency certificate for international educational recognition is typically complicated and opaque, and differs depending on the nation and system. To overcome these issues and empower students, this study suggests a revolutionary assessment tool that makes use of blockchain technology, chatbots, the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), and Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI). Educational equivalency assessments frequently face difficulties and lack of openness in a variety of settings. The suggested solution uses blockchain for tamper-proof record keeping and secure data storage, based on the capabilities of each component. This improves the blockchain’s ability to securely store application data and evaluation results, fostering immutability and trust. Using the distributed ledger feature of blockchain promotes fairness in evaluations by preventing tampering and guaranteeing data integrity. The blockchain ensures data security and privacy by encrypting and storing data. Discuss how XAI might explain AI-driven equivalence choices, promoting fairness and trust, by reviewing pertinent material in each domain. Chatbots can improve accessibility by streamlining data collection and assisting students along the way. Transparency and efficiency are provided via ECTS computations that integrate XAI and chatbots. Emphasizing the availability of multilingual support for international students, we also address issues such as data privacy and system adaption. The study recommends further research to assess the multifaceted method in practical contexts and improve the technology for moral and efficient application. In the end, both students and institutions will benefit from this, as it can empower individuals and promote international mobility of degree equivalization.

Malware poses a significant threat to global cy-bersecurity, with machine learning emerging as the primary method for its detection and analysis. However, the opaque nature of machine learning s decision-making process of-ten leads to confusion among stakeholders, undermining their confidence in the detection outcomes. To enhance the trustworthiness of malware detection, Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) is employed to offer transparent and comprehensible explanations of the detection mechanisms, which enable stakeholders to gain a deeper understanding of detection mechanisms and assist in developing defensive strategies. Despite the recent XAI advancements, several challenges remain unaddressed. In this paper, we explore the specific obstacles encountered in applying XAI to malware detection and analysis, aiming to provide a road map for future research in this critical domain.

Conventional approaches to analyzing industrial control systems have relied on either white-box analysis or black-box fuzzing. However, white-box methods rely on sophisticated domain expertise, while black-box methods suffers from state explosion and thus scales poorly when analyzing real ICS involving a large number of sensors and actuators. To address these limitations, we propose XAI-based gray-box fuzzing, a novel approach that leverages explainable AI and machine learning modeling of ICS to accurately identify a small set of actuators critical to ICS safety, which result in significant reduction of state space without relying on domain expertise. Experiment results show that our method accurately explains the ICS model and significantly speeds-up fuzzing by 64x when compared to conventional black-box methods.

Many studies have been conducted to detect various malicious activities in cyberspace using classifiers built by machine learning. However, it is natural for any classifier to make mistakes, and hence, human verification is necessary. One method to address this issue is eXplainable AI (XAI), which provides a reason for the classification result. However, when the number of classification results to be verified is large, it is not realistic to check the output of the XAI for all cases. In addition, it is sometimes difficult to interpret the output of XAI. In this study, we propose a machine learning model called classification verifier that verifies the classification results by using the output of XAI as a feature and raises objections when there is doubt about the reliability of the classification results. The results of experiments on malicious website detection and malware detection show that the proposed classification verifier can efficiently identify misclassified malicious activities.

Many forms of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are adopted in communication networks to perform all optimizations, security management, and decision-making tasks. Instead of using conventional blackbox models, the tendency is to use explainable ML models that provide transparency and accountability. Moreover, Federate Learning (FL) type ML models are becoming more popular than the typical Centralized Learning (CL) models due to the distributed nature of the networks and security privacy concerns. Therefore, it is very timely to research how to find the explainability using Explainable AI (XAI) in different ML models. This paper comprehensively analyzes using XAI in CL and FL-based anomaly detection in networks. We use a deep neural network as the black-box model with two data sets, UNSW-NB15 and NSLKDD, and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) as the XAI model. We demonstrate that the FL explanation differs from CL with the client anomaly percentage.

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) aims to improve the transparency of machine learning (ML) pipelines. We systematize the increasingly growing (but fragmented) microcosm of studies that develop and utilize XAI methods for defensive and offensive cybersecurity tasks. We identify 3 cybersecurity stakeholders, i.e., model users, designers, and adversaries, who utilize XAI for 4 distinct objectives within an ML pipeline, namely 1) XAI-enabled user assistance, 2) XAI-enabled model verification, 3) explanation verification \& robustness, and 4) offensive use of explanations. Our analysis of the literature indicates that many of the XAI applications are designed with little understanding of how they might be integrated into analyst workflows – user studies for explanation evaluation are conducted in only 14\% of the cases. The security literature sometimes also fails to disentangle the role of the various stakeholders, e.g., by providing explanations to model users and designers while also exposing them to adversaries. Additionally, the role of model designers is particularly minimized in the security literature. To this end, we present an illustrative tutorial for model designers, demonstrating how XAI can help with model verification. We also discuss scenarios where interpretability by design may be a better alternative. The systematization and the tutorial enable us to challenge several assumptions, and present open problems that can help shape the future of XAI research within cybersecurity.

Deep learning models are being utilized and further developed in many application domains, but challenges still exist regarding their interpretability and consistency. Interpretability is important to provide users with transparent information that enhances the trust between the user and the learning model. It also gives developers feedback to improve the consistency of their deep learning models. In this paper, we present a novel architectural design to embed interpretation into the architecture of the deep learning model. We apply dynamic pixel-wised weights to input images and produce a highly correlated feature map for classification. This feature map is useful for providing interpretation and transparent information about the decision-making of the deep learning model while keeping full context about the relevant feature information compared to previous interpretation algorithms. The proposed model achieved 92\% accuracy for CIFAR 10 classifications without finetuning the hyperparameters. Furthermore, it achieved a 20\% accuracy under 8/255 PGD adversarial attack for 100 iterations without any defense method, indicating extra natural robustness compared to other Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed architecture.

In the realm of agriculture, where crop health is integral to global food security, Our focus is on the early detection of crop diseases. Leveraging Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) on a diverse dataset of crop images, our study focuses on the development, training, and optimization of these networks to achieve accurate and timely disease classification. The first segment demonstrates the efficacy of CNN architecture and optimization strategy, showcasing the potential of deep learning models in automating the identification process. The synergy of robust disease detection and interpretability through Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) presented in this work marks a significant stride toward bridging the gap between advanced technology and precision agriculture. By employing visualization, the research seeks to unravel the decision-making processes of our models. XAI Visualization method emerges as notably superior in terms of accuracy, hinting at its better identification of the disease, this method achieves an accuracy of 89.75\%, surpassing both the heat map model and the LIME explanation method. This not only enhances the transparency and trustworthiness of the predictions but also provides invaluable insights for end-users, allowing them to comprehend the diagnostic features considered by the complex algorithm.

The Zero-trust security architecture is a paradigm shift toward resilient cyber warfare. Although Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) have been widely adopted within military operations to detect malicious traffic and ensure instant remediation against attacks, this paper proposed an explainable adversarial mitigation approach specifically designed for zero-trust cyber warfare scenarios. It aims to provide a transparent and robust defense mechanism against adversarial attacks, enabling effective protection and accountability for increased resilience against attacks. The simulation results show the balance of security and trust within the proposed parameter protection model achieving a high F1-score of 94\%, a least test loss of 0.264, and an adequate detection time of 0.34s during the prediction of attack types.

With UAVs on the rise, accurate detection and identification are crucial. Traditional unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) identification systems involve opaque decision-making, restricting their usability. This research introduces an RF-based Deep Learning (DL) framework for drone recognition and identification. We use cutting-edge eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) tools, SHapley Additive Explanations (SHAP), and Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations(LIME). Our deep learning model uses these methods for accurate, transparent, and interpretable airspace security. With 84.59\% accuracy, our deep-learning algorithms detect drone signals from RF noise. Most crucially, SHAP and LIME improve UAV detection. Detailed explanations show the model s identification decision-making process. This transparency and interpretability set our system apart. The accurate, transparent, and user-trustworthy model improves airspace security.

This study addresses the critical need to secure VR network communication from non-immersive attacks, employing an intrusion detection system (IDS). While deep learning (DL) models offer advanced solutions, their opacity as "black box" models raises concerns. Recognizing this gap, the research underscores the urgency for DL-based explainability, enabling data analysts and cybersecurity experts to grasp model intricacies. Leveraging sensed data from IoT devices, our work trains a DL-based model for attack detection and mitigation in the VR network, Importantly, we extend our contribution by providing comprehensive global and local interpretations of the model’s decisions post-evaluation using SHAP-based explanation.

Explainable AI is an emerging field that aims to address how black-box decisions of AI systems are made, by attempting to understand the steps and models involved in this decision-making. Explainable AI in manufacturing is supposed to deliver predictability, agility, and resiliency across targeted manufacturing apps. In this context, large amounts of data, which can be of high sensitivity and various formats need to be securely and efficiently handled. This paper proposes an Asset Management and Secure Sharing solution tailored to the Explainable AI and Manufacturing context in order to tackle this challenge. The proposed asset management architecture enables an extensive data management and secure sharing solution for industrial data assets. Industrial data can be pulled, imported, managed, shared, and tracked with a high level of security using this design. This paper describes the solution´s overall architectural design and gives an overview of the functionalities and incorporated technologies of the involved components, which are responsible for data collection, management, provenance, and sharing as well as for overall security.

The interest in metaverse applications by existing industries has seen massive growth thanks to the accelerated pace of research in key technological fields and the shift towards virtual interactions fueled by the Covid-19 pandemic. One key industry that can benefit from the integration into the metaverse is healthcare. The potential to provide enhanced care for patients affected by multiple health issues, from standard afflictions to more specialized pathologies, is being explored through the fabrication of architectures that can support metaverse applications. In this paper, we focus on the persistent issues of lung cancer detection, monitoring, and treatment, to propose MetaLung, a privacy and integrity-preserving architecture on the metaverse. We discuss the use cases to enable remote patient-doctor interactions, patient constant monitoring, and remote care. By leveraging technologies such as digital twins, edge computing, explainable AI, IoT, and virtual/augmented reality, we propose how the system could provide better assistance to lung cancer patients and suggest individualized treatment plans to the doctors based on their information. In addition, we describe the current implementation state of the AI-based Decision Support System for treatment selection, I3LUNG, and the current state of patient data collection.

In the progressive development towards 6G, the ROBUST-6G initiative aims to provide fundamental contributions to developing data-driven, AIIML-based security solutions to meet the new concerns posed by the dynamic nature of forth-coming 6G services and networks in the future cyber-physical continuum. This aim has to be accompanied by the transversal objective of protecting AIIML systems from security attacks and ensuring the privacy of individuals whose data are used in AI-empowered systems. ROBUST-6G will essentially investigate the security and robustness of distributed intelligence, enhancing privacy and providing transparency by leveraging explainable AIIML (XAI). Another objective of ROBUST-6G is to promote green and sustainable AIIML methodologies to achieve energy efficiency in 6G network design. The vision of ROBUST-6G is to optimize the computation requirements and minimize the consumed energy while providing the necessary performance for AIIML-driven security functionalities; this will enable sustainable solutions across society while suppressing any adverse effects. This paper aims to initiate the discussion and to highlight the key goals and milestones of ROBUST-6G, which are important for investigation towards a trustworthy and secure vision for future 6G networks.

In the dynamic and ever-changing domain of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), the utmost importance lies in guaranteeing resilient and lucid security measures. This study highlights the necessity of implementing a Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) to enhance the security of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), hence departing from conventional perimeter defences that may expose vulnerabilities. The Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) paradigm requires a rigorous and continuous process of authenticating all network entities and communications. The accuracy of our methodology in detecting and identifying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is 84.59\%. This is achieved by utilizing Radio Frequency (RF) signals within a Deep Learning framework, a unique method. Precise identification is crucial in Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), as it determines network access. In addition, the use of eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) tools such as SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) and Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME) contributes to the improvement of the model s transparency and interpretability. Adherence to Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) standards guarantees that the classifications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are verifiable and comprehensible, enhancing security within the UAV field.

The fixed security solutions and related security configurations may no longer meet the diverse requirements of 6G networks. Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) architecture is going to be one key entry point to 6G where the direct user access is granted. O-RAN promotes the design, deployment and operation of the RAN with open interfaces and optimized by intelligent controllers. O-RAN networks are to be implemented as multi-vendor systems with interoperable components and can be programmatically optimized through centralized abstraction layer and data driven closed-loop control. However, since O-RAN contains many new open interfaces and data flows, new security issues may emerge. Providing the recommendations for dynamic security policy adjustments by considering the energy availability and risk or security level of the network is something lacking in the current state-of-the-art. When the security process is managed and executed in an autonomous way, it must also assure the transparency of the security policy adjustments and provide the reasoning behind the adjustment decisions to the interested parties whenever needed. Moreover, the energy consumption for such security solutions are constantly bringing overhead to the networking devices. Therefore, in this paper we discuss XAI based green security architecture for resilient open radio access networks in 6G known as XcARet for providing cognitive and transparent security solutions for O-RAN in a more energy efficient manner.

At present, technological solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI) are being accelerated in various sectors of the economy and social relations in the world. Practice shows that fast-developing information technologies, as a rule, carry new, previously unidentified threats to information security (IS). It is quite obvious that identification of vulnerabilities, threats and risks of AI technologies requires consideration of each technology separately or in some aggregate in cases of their joint use in application solutions. Of the wide range of AI technologies, data preparation, DevOps, Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, cloud technologies, microprocessors and public services (including Marketplaces) have received the most attention. Due to the high importance and impact on most AI solutions, this paper will focus on the key AI assets, the attacks and risks that arise when implementing AI-based systems, and the issue of building secure AI.

The vision and key elements of the 6th generation (6G) ecosystem are being discussed very actively in academic and industrial circles. In this work, we provide a timely update to the 6G security vision presented in our previous publications to contribute to these efforts. We elaborate further on some key security challenges for the envisioned 6G wireless systems, explore recently emerging aspects, and identify potential solutions from an additive perspective. This speculative treatment aims explicitly to complement our previous work through the lens of developments of the last two years in 6G research and development.

The rising use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in human detection on Edge camera systems has led to accurate but complex models, challenging to interpret and debug. Our research presents a diagnostic method using XAI for model debugging, with expert-driven problem identification and solution creation. Validated on the Bytetrack model in a real-world office Edge network, we found the training dataset as the main bias source and suggested model augmentation as a solution. Our approach helps identify model biases, essential for achieving fair and trustworthy models.

Procurement is a critical step in the setup of systems, as reverting decisions made at this point is typically time-consuming and costly. Especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) based systems face many challenges, starting with unclear and unknown side parameters at design time of the systems, changing ecosystems and regulations, as well as problems of overselling capabilities of systems by vendors. Furthermore, the AI Act puts forth a great deal of additional requirements for operators of critical AI systems, like risk management and transparency measures, thus making procurement even more complex. In addition, the number of providers of AI systems is drastically increasing. In this paper we provide guidelines for the procurement of AI based systems that support the decision maker in identifying the key elements for the procurement of secure AI systems, depending on the respective technical and regulatory environment. Furthermore, we provide additional resources for utilizing these guidelines in practical procurement.

In recent years, with the accelerated development of social informatization, digital economy has gradually become the core force of economic growth in various countries. As the carrier for the digital economy, the number of IDCs is also increasing day by day, and their construction volume and scale are expanding. Energy consumption and carbon emissions are growing rapidly as IDCs require large amounts of electricity to run servers, storage, backup, cooling systems and other infrastructure. IDCs are facing serious challenges of energy saving and greenhouse gas emission. How to achieve green, low-carbon and high-quality development is of particular concern. This paper summarizes and classifies all the current green energy-saving technologies in IDCs, introduces AI-based energy-saving solutions for IDC cooling systems in detail, compares and analyzes the energy-saving effects of AI energy-saving technologies and traditional energy-saving technologies, and points out the advantages of AI energy-saving solutions applied in green IDCs.