MALRIS: Malicious Hardware in RIS-Assisted Wireless Communications

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) enhance wireless communication by dynamically shaping the propagation environment, but their integration introduces hardware-level security risks. This paper presents the concept of Malicious RIS (MALRIS), where compromised components behave adversarially, even under passive operation. The focus of this work is on practical threats such as manufacturing time tampering, malicious firmware, and partial element control. Two representative attacks, power-splitting and element-splitting, are modeled to assess their impact. Simulations in a RIS-assisted system reveal that even a limited hardware compromise can significantly degrade performance metrics such as bit error rate, throughput, and secrecy metrics. By exposing this overlooked threat surface, this work aims to promote awareness and support secure, trustworthy RIS deployment in future wireless networks.

A Hybrid Spiking-Convolutional Neural Network Approach for Advancing Machine Learning Models

In this article, we propose a novel standalone hybrid Spiking-Convolutional Neural Network (SC-NN) model and test on using image inpainting tasks. Our approach uses the unique capabilities of SNNs, such as event-based computation and temporal processing, along with the strong representation learning abilities of CNNs, to generate high-quality inpainted images. The model is trained on a custom dataset specifically designed for image inpainting, where missing regions are created using masks. The hybrid model consists of SNNConv2d layers and traditional CNN layers. The SNNConv2d layers implement the leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) neuron model, capturing spiking behavior, while the CNN layers capture spatial features. In this study, a mean squared error (MSE) loss function demonstrates the training process, where a training loss value of 0.015, indicates accurate performance on the training set and the model achieved a validation loss value as low as 0.0017 on the testing set. Furthermore, extensive experimental results demonstrate state-of-the-art performance, showcasing the potential of integrating temporal dynamics and feature extraction in a single network for image inpainting.