Applications and techniques in information and network security

In this special issue, eight papers are accepted for publication. These papers collectively address the cybersecurity risks posed by software vulnerabilities and various exploits such as phishing and malware that exploit the vulnerabilities to perpetrate an attack on the systems. The overwhelming growth of Internet and its users is a reality, which has put new thoughts among the research community to devise new ideas for giving coverage to a huge number of people around the globe. The continually increasing reliance on networked communication technology by businesses, the general public and government services, and their role in the critical infrastructure makes it imperative to have security technologies built into them. Cyberspace comprises an interdependent network of information technology infrastructures essential to our economy, security, and way of life. Securing cyberspace was recognized to be one of the great Grand Challenges of the future according to the National Academy of Engineering. However, the increasing scale, complexity, heterogeneity, and dynamism of Internet and distributed computing systems with respect to communication networks, resources, and applications have made such systems brittle, unmanageable, and insecure. Information and network security deals with the operations undertaken to protect and defend networked communication systems by ensuring their availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and non-repudiation and has become an important research and development area for academia, government, and industry. There is a need to ensure that high-quality solutions that address important and emerging security issues are disseminated timely and widely among the research community. In recent years, Internet security has received renewed interest from a broad range of stakeholders ranging from national governments to corporations and end users of computer systems and the Internet. As a result, Internet security research has been placed high as a national priority. In this challenging environment, there is a need for researchers, from different fields of science and engineering, to model their systems, services, and applications from the perspective of security, robustness, and integrity. As academic research in cyber security has developed over the last twenty or so years, techniques and applications are being developed to be of specific use in these areas such as cryptographic protocols, malicious software, cloud computing, and wireless sensor network security and are still in need of a basic theoretical framework. This special issue aims at compiling the recent advancements as well as to examine the techniques available in the context of information and network security and has addressed the above-mentioned research problems through highquality papers. As this special issue aimed at getting the latest advancements in the areas of information security, network security, and cyber security, the papers have been submitted from the authors of diverse backgrounds working on various aspects of the issues related to the scope of the call. All submitted papers have been rigorously reviewed (at least three reviewers with blind review) in order to maintain the quality, originality, and relevance of the paper to be published in the special issue. To maintain the quality of the paper, some papers were suggested for further revision for second round review as per reviewer’s comments. Accordingly, authors have responded with the improved versions of the papers. The works from diverse fields related to the call for papers make this special issue a good common platform for getting the essence of a broad area of information and network security. In this special issue, eight papers are accepted after for publication. These papers collectively address the cybersecurity risks posed by software vulnerabilities and various exploits such as phishing and malware that exploit the vulnerabilities to perpetrate an attack on the systems.