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Apresentação

Sistemas de Computação Avançada

O Centro de Sistemas de Computação Avançada (CRACS) procura a excelência científica nas áreas de linguagens de programação, computação paralela e distribuída, mineração de informação, segurança e privacidade, com foco no desenvolvimento de sistemas de software escaláveis para aplicações multidisciplinares nas áreas da Engenharia, Ciências da Vida, Redes Sociais e Internet das Coisas, entre outras.


Particular ênfase no conhecimento dos conceitos teóricos e práticos subjacentes ao desenho e desenvolvimento de linguagens de programação e camadas intermédias de software para sistemas avançados de computação (sistemas de computação paralela, distribuída, de alto-desempenho, na nuvem, dispositivos wireless e IoT) e no conhecimento dos conceitos teóricos e práticos dos principais algoritmos e metodologias utilizadas para promover a confiança, privacidade e segurança em sistemas computacionais.


O ambiente de investigação é formado por talentosos investigadores juniores que, em conjunto, com os investigadores seniores, maioritariamente docentes universitários, constituem a massa crítica e as competências científicas necessárias para cumprir a nossa missão.

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Publicações

CRACS Publicações

Ler todas as publicações

2026

Enhancing IoMT Security by Using Benford's Law and Distance Functions

Autores
Fernandes, P; Ciardhuáin, SO; Antunes, M;

Publicação
PATTERN RECOGNITION AND IMAGE ANALYSIS, IBPRIA 2025, PT I

Abstract
The increasing connectivity of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices has accentuated their susceptibility to cyberattacks. The sensitive data they handle makes them prime targets for information theft and extortion, while outdated and insecure communication protocols further elevate security risks. This paper presents a lightweight and innovative approach that combines Benford's law with statistical distance functions to detect attacks in IoMT devices. The methodology uses Benford's law to analyze digit frequency and classify IoMT devices traffic as benign or malicious, regardless of attack type. It employs distance-based statistical functions like Jensen-Shannon divergence, KullbackLeibler divergence, Pearson correlation, and the Kolmogorov test to detect anomalies. Experimental validation was conducted on the CIC-IoMT-2024 benchmark dataset, comprising 45 features and multiple attack types. The best performance was achieved with the Kolmogorov test (alpha = 0.01), particularly in DoS ICMP attacks, yielding a precision of.99.24%, a recall of.98.73%, an F1 score of.98.97%, and an accuracy of.97.81%. Jensen-Shannon divergence also performed robustly in detecting SYN-based attacks, demonstrating strong detection with minimal computational cost. These findings confirm that Benford's law, when combined with well-chosen statistical distances, offers a viable and efficient alternative to machine learning models for anomaly detection in constrained environments like IoMT.

2026

An Optimized Multi-class Classification for Industrial Control Systems

Autores
Palma, A; Antunes, M; Alves, A;

Publicação
PATTERN RECOGNITION AND IMAGE ANALYSIS, IBPRIA 2025, PT I

Abstract
Ensuring the security of Industrial Control Systems (ICS) is increasingly critical due to increasing connectivity and cyber threats. Traditional security measures often fail to detect evolving attacks, necessitating more effective solutions. This paper evaluates machine learning (ML) methods for ICS cybersecurity, using the ICS-Flow dataset and Optuna for hyperparameter tuning. The selected models, namely Random Forest (RF), AdaBoost, XGBoost, Deep Neural Networks, Artificial Neural Networks, ExtraTrees (ET), and Logistic Regression, are assessed using macro-averaged F1-score to handle class imbalance. Experimental results demonstrate that ensemble-based methods (RF, XGBoost, and ET) offer the highest overall detection performance, particularly in identifying commonly occurring attack types. However, minority classes, such as IP-Scan, remain difficult to detect accurately, indicating that hyperparameter tuning alone is insufficient to fully deal with imbalanced ICS data. These findings highlight the importance of complementary measures, such as focused feature selection, to enhance classification capabilities and protect industrial networks against a wider array of threats.

2025

Blockchain-Assisted Device as a Service (DaaS)

Autores
Tavares, MC; Mendonca, RP; Meneses, D; Santos, A; Pinto, A;

Publicação
BLOCKCHAIN AND APPLICATIONS, 6TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS

Abstract
The paradigm of Device as a Service (DaaS) is one where devices are used as part of a service, with the user having no ownership over them. A centralised, web-based approach can be envisioned to support such a business model, but such lacks transparency, availability, and global scalability. A blockchain-based solution is proposed to support such a business model. The concept of a blockchain-assisted DaaS is novel and, by using smart contracts to support key interactions between relevant entities, marks a shift in device ownership, management, and revenue generation.

2025

A blockchain architecture with smart contracts for an additive symbiotic network - a case study

Autores
Ferreira, IA; Palazzo, G; Pinto, A; Pinto, P; Sousa, P; Godina, R; Carvalho, H;

Publicação
OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT RESEARCH

Abstract
Adopting innovative technologies such as blockchain and additive manufacturing can help organisations promote the development of additive symbiotic networks, thus pursuing higher sustainable goals and implementing circular economy strategies. These symbiotic networks correspond to industrial symbiosis networks in which wastes and by-products from other industries are incorporated into additive manufacturing processes. The adoption of blockchain technology in such a context is still in a nascent stage. Using the case study method, this research demonstrates the adoption of blockchain technology in an additive symbiotic network of a real-life context. The requirements to use a blockchain network are identified, and an architecture based on smart contracts is proposed as an enabler of the additive symbiotic network under study. The proposed solution uses the Hyperledger Fabric Attribute-Based Access Control as the distributed ledger technology. Even though this solution is still in the proof-of-concept stage, the results show that adopting it would allow the elimination of intermediary entities, keep available tracking records of the resources exchanged, and improve trust among the symbiotic stakeholders (that do not have any trust or cooperation mechanisms established before the symbiotic relationship). This study highlights that the complexity associated with introducing a novel technology and the technology's immaturity compared to other data storage technologies are some of the main challenges related to using blockchain technology in additive symbiotic networks.

2025

Emotional Sequencing as a Marker of Manipulation in Social Media Disinformation

Autores
Vieira, RS; Figueira, A;

Publicação
FUTURE INTERNET

Abstract
The proliferation of disinformation on social media platforms poses a significant challenge to the reliability of online information ecosystems and the protection of public discourse. This study investigates the role of emotional sequences in detecting intentionally misleading messages disseminated on social networks. To this end, we apply a methodological pipeline that combines semantic segmentation, automatic emotion recognition, and sequential pattern mining. Emotional sequences are extracted at the subsentence level, preserving each message's temporal order of emotional cues. Comparative analyses reveal that disinformation messages exhibit a higher prevalence of negative emotions, particularly fear, anger, and sadness, interspersed with neutral segments. Moreover, false messages frequently employ complex emotional progressions-alternating between high-intensity negative emotions and emotionally neutral passages-designed to capture attention and maximize engagement. In contrast, messages from reliable sources tend to follow simpler, more linear emotional trajectories, with a greater prevalence of positive emotions such as joy. Our dataset encompasses multiple categories of disinformation, enabling a fine-grained analysis of how emotional sequencing varies across different types of misleading content. Furthermore, we validate our approach by comparing it against a publicly available disinformation dataset, demonstrating the generalizability of our findings. The results highlight the importance of analyzing temporal emotional patterns to distinguish disinformation from verified content, reinforcing the value of integrating emotional sequences into machine learning pipelines to enhance disinformation detection. This work contributes to the growing body of research emphasizing the relationship between emotional manipulation and the virality of misleading content online.