Federated Learning Approaches for Anomaly Detection in IoT Environments: A Systematic Literature Review
Abstract
The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices is driving significant data generation—and, consequently, a crucial demand for reliable, privacy-centric anomaly detection (AD). Federated Learning (FL) enables collaborative model training without centralizing sensitive data, addressing fundamental constraints encountered by conventional, server-oriented approaches. Adhering to the PRISMA 2020 framework, we rigorously examined 60 well-documented studies (2017–2026) on FL-oriented AD in IoT. We scrutinize architectures, learning paradigms, datasets, applications, privacy mechanisms, communication efficacy, and evaluation metrics, and systematically classify the domain into a taxonomy encompassing architectural frameworks, privacy-preserving strategies, communication protocols, and detection algorithms. In scholarly publications, FL methodologies frequently align with centralized references while preserving data confidentiality, yielding detection accuracy metrics ranging from 80% to 99.89%, with the majority of approaches exceeding 90%. Simultaneously, unresolved challenges persist: non-IID and heterogeneous data, communication and energy expenditures, resilience under adversarial circumstances, and real-world scalability. Emerging hybrid methodologies that amalgamate FL with complementary techniques (e.g., model compression, secure aggregation, and multi-modal fusion) demonstrate promise. This review delves into the contemporary landscape, exposes inadequacies, and charts explicit research directions to enhance the security and reliability of IoT environments.
Keywords
Ethical Statement
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
System and Network Security, Artificial Intelligence (Other)
Journal Section
Review
Authors
Anas Harchi
*
0009-0009-7665-0425
Morocco
Hicham Toumi
0000-0003-3372-4147
Morocco
Mohamed Talea
0000-0003-2364-0804
Morocco
Early Pub Date
October 29, 2026
Publication Date
October 30, 2026
Submission Date
November 27, 2025
Acceptance Date
February 18, 2026
Published in Issue
Year 2026 Volume: 9 Number: 5