DAIRE: A lightweight AI model for real-time detection of Controller Area Network attacks in the Internet of Vehicles

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 22 Apr 2026] DAIRE: A lightweight AI model for real-time detection of Controller Area Network attacks in the Internet of Vehicles Shahid Alam, Amina Jameel, Zahida Parveen, Ehab Alnfrawy, Adeela Ashraf, Raza Uddin, Jamal Aqib The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is advancing modern transportation by improving safety, efficiency, and intelligence. However, the reliance on the Controller Area Network (CAN) introduces critical security risks, as CAN-based communication is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks. Addressing this challenge, we propose DAIRE (Detecting Attacks in IoV in REal-time), a lightweight machine learning framework designed for real-time detection and classification of CAN attacks. DAIRE is built on a lightweight artificial neural network (ANN) where each layer contains Ni = i x c neurons, with Ni representing the number of neurons in the ith layer and c corresponding to the total number of attack classes. Other hyperparameters are determined empirically to ensure real-time operation. To support the detection and classification of various IoV attacks, such as Denial-of-Service, Fuzzy, and Spoofing, DAIRE employs the sparse categorical cross-entropy loss function and root mean square propagation for loss minimization. In contrast to more resource-intensive architectures, DAIRE leverages a lightweight ANN to reduce computational demands while still delivering strong performance. Experimental results on the CICIoV2024 and Car-Hacking datasets demonstrate DAIRE's effectiveness, achieving an average detection rate of 99.88%, a false positive rate of 0.02%, and an overall accuracy of 99.96%. Furthermore, DAIRE significantly outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in inference speed, with a classification time of just 0.03 ms per sample. These results highlight DAIRE's effectiveness in detecting IoV cyberattacks and its practical suitability for real-time deployment in vehicular systems, underscoring its vital role in strengthening automotive cybersecurity. Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) Cite as: arXiv:2604.20771 [cs.CR]   (or arXiv:2604.20771v1 [cs.CR] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.20771 Focus to learn more Journal reference: Machine Learning with Applications (2026): 100859 Related DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mlwa.2026.100859 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Shahid Alam [view email] [v1] Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:58:58 UTC (1,951 KB) Access Paper: view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cs cs.AI References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)