  The introduction of 6G technology into the Internet of Vehicles (IoV)
promises to revolutionize connectivity with ultra-high data rates and seamless
network coverage. However, this technological leap also brings significant
challenges, particularly for the dynamic and diverse IoV landscape, which must
meet the rigorous reliability and security requirements of 6G networks.
Furthermore, integrating 6G will likely increase the IoV's susceptibility to a
spectrum of emerging cyber threats. Therefore, it is crucial for security
mechanisms to dynamically adapt and learn new attack patterns, keeping pace
with the rapid evolution and diversification of these threats - a capability
currently lacking in existing systems. This paper presents a novel intrusion
detection system leveraging the paradigm of life-long (or continual) learning.
Our methodology combines class-incremental learning with federated learning, an
approach ideally suited to the distributed nature of the IoV. This strategy
effectively harnesses the collective intelligence of Connected and Automated
Vehicles (CAVs) and edge computing capabilities to train the detection system.
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to synergize
class-incremental learning with federated learning specifically for cyber
attack detection. Through comprehensive experiments on a recent network traffic
dataset, our system has exhibited a robust adaptability in learning new cyber
attack patterns, while effectively retaining knowledge of previously
encountered ones. Additionally, it has proven to maintain high accuracy and a
low false positive rate.
