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  1. Creating engaging cybersecurity education materials typically requires months of development time and specialized expertise. This paper describes how we used generative AI to address this challenge. We utilized Claude AI to generate a complete interactive platform that teaches students basic microelectronics through IoT hacking. Through iterative prompting, we generated more than 15,000 lines of functional code, including interactive visualizations, Python security tools, and gamified quizzes with real-time leaderboards. The curriculum guides students through the evolution of computing—from vacuum tubes to modern IoT devices—then helps them apply this foundation to discover real vulnerabilities. We implemented this platform at a GenCyber summer camp with 40 participants, where students identified actual security issues in AmpliPi audio systems—opensource network audio devices designed for multi-room audio distribution—including password weaknesses and denial of service flaws. The entire development process took only three weeks instead of the typical several months. The AI produced quality educational content, although we reviewed everything for technical accuracy and ethical considerations. During the camp, students remained engaged through competitive elements and hands-on labs, learning both theoretical concepts and practical skills. The students used AI-generated tools, including working implementations of SlowLoris and dictionary attacks, to test real systems. Our experience demonstrates that generative AI can efficiently create effective cybersecurity education materials that remain technically current. All materials are publicly available on GitHub for educational use. This approach could help educators stay on track with the rapidly evolving technology despite traditional curriculum development constraints. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available November 14, 2026
  2. Panoptic perception models in autonomous driving use deep learning models to interpret their surroundings and make real-time decisions. However, these models are susceptible, carefully designed noise can fool models all while being imperceptible to humans. In this work, we investigate the impact of blackbox adversarial noise attacks on three core perception tasks: drivable area recognition, lane line segmentation, and object detection. Unlike white-box attacks, black-box attacks assume no knowledge of the model’s internal parameters making them a more realistic and challenging threat scenario. Our goal is to evaluate how such an attack affects the model’s predictions and explore countermeasures towards such attacks. In response to our implemented attack, we have tested various defense methods. With each defense method, we have assessed the recovery on prediction accuracy. This research aims to provide valuable insights into the vulnerabilities of panoptic perception models and highlights strategies for enhancing their resilience against adversarial manipulation within real-world scenarios. All our attacks are performed against images from the BDD100K dataset. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available October 6, 2026
  3. Recent studies have demonstrated significant success in detecting attacks on the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus network using machine learning and deep learning models, including convolutional neural networks and transformer-based architectures. Building on this foundation, our work investigates the use of large language models (LLMs) not only for intrusion detection but also for providing interpretable explanations of their decisions. We fine-tuned three LLMs, i.e., SecureBERT, LLaMA-2, and LLaMA-3, for intrusion detection on CAN bus data. Among them, LLaMA-3 delivered the best results, achieving SOTA performance on the Car-Hacking dataset. Beyond attack classification, we evaluated LLaMA-3’s ability to generate reasoning for its decisions through zero-shot prompting. The model successfully articulated its rationale, particularly for Denial-of- Service (DoS) attacks, demonstrating strong potential for explainability in intrusion detection systems. These findings highlight the potential of LLMs to serve as a highly accurate intrusion detection system while simultaneously providing interpretable explanations, thereby enhancing the investigative capabilities of cybersecurity professionals. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available October 6, 2026