Learning Mechanisms for Detecting Abnormal Behaviors in Embedded Systems

Thesis topic details

General information

Organisation

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is a key player in research, development and innovation in four main areas :
• defence and security,
• nuclear energy (fission and fusion),
• technological research for industry,
• fundamental research in the physical sciences and life sciences.

Drawing on its widely acknowledged expertise, and thanks to its 16000 technicians, engineers, researchers and staff, the CEA actively participates in collaborative projects with a large number of academic and industrial partners.

The CEA is established in ten centers spread throughout France
  

Reference

SL-DRT-26-0580  

Direction

DRT

Thesis topic details

Category

Technological challenges

Thesis topics

Learning Mechanisms for Detecting Abnormal Behaviors in Embedded Systems

Contract

Thèse

Job description

Embedded systems are increasingly used in critical infrastructures (e.g., energy production networks) and are therefore prime targets for malicious actors. The use of intrusion detection systems (IDS) that dynamically analyze the system's state is becoming necessary to detect an attack before its impacts become harmful.
The IDS that interest us are based on machine learning anomaly detection methods and allow learning the normal behavior of a system and raising an alert at the slightest deviation. However, the learning of normal behavior by the model is done only once beforehand on a static dataset, even though the embedded systems considered can evolve over time with updates affecting their nominal behavior or the addition of new behaviors deemed legitimate.
The subject of this thesis therefore focuses on studying re-learning mechanisms for anomaly detection models to update the model's knowledge of normal behavior without losing information about its prior knowledge. Other learning paradigms, such as reinforcement learning or federated learning, may also be studied to improve the performance of IDS and enable learning from the behavior of multiple systems.

University / doctoral school

Mathématiques, Sciences et Technologies de l’Information, Informatique (MSTII)
Grenoble INP

Thesis topic location

Site

Grenoble

Requester

Position start date

01/10/2026

Person to be contacted by the applicant

THEVENON Pierre-Henri pierre-henri.thevenon@cea.fr
CEA
DRT/DSYS/SSSEC/LSES
CEA Grenoble
17 rue des Martyrs
38054 Grenoble
+33438789807

Tutor / Responsible thesis director

Breux Victor victor.breux@cea.fr
CEA
DRT/DSYS/SSSEC/LSES
CEA Grenoble
17 rue des Martyrs
38054 Grenoble
+33438783321

En savoir plus


http://www.leti-cea.fr/cea-tech/leti/Pages/recherche-appliquee/infrastructures-de-recherche/plateforme-cybersecurite.aspx