Special Issue on ‘Security in a Completely Interconnected World’

Machine-­‐to-­‐Machine (M2M); and many others – is giving birth to a completely interconnected world. In this world, every entity (be it a machine, a daily object, a person, or anything) can have a globally locatable, addressable, and readable virtual counterpart, which can collaborate with each other in the provisioning of various services. This concept is slowly becoming a reality: specific standards are being developed, new research results are being obtained, and novel services are being provided by both newborn start-­‐ups and experienced companies in various areas (e.g., SCADA systems, smart grids, smart cities). However, several significant obstacles hinder the full implementation of this concept, and among them are the security issues. In fact, as there is already a parallel economy exploiting the foundational weaknesses of the Internet, this new environment will surely be targeted by original and ingenious malicious models. The challenge here is to prevent the growth of such models or at least to mitigate and limit their impact. Therefore, it is necessary to provide strong foundations to those paradigms that require it (such as IoT), and develop various robust and resilient security mechanisms that allow the secure interaction between entities even in restrictive contexts. Precisely, the goal of this special issue is to publish cutting-­‐edge research results and innovation case studies that will help to set the security foundations of this new interconnected world. Topics of Interest In terms of security challenges, topics of interest include but are not limited to: • Novel security problems and challenges. • Privacy risks and data management problems. • Identifying, authenticating, and authorizing entities. • Development of trust frameworks for secure collaboration. • Cryptographic primitives and algorithms for constrained devices. • Secure connection of heterogeneous ecosystems and technologies. • Legal challenges and governance issues. • Fault tolerance and resilience to external and internal attacks. • Context-­‐Aware security. • Security of cloud-­‐based M2M/IoT platforms. • Distributed policy enforcement and rights management. • Usability of security and privacy technologies. • Security in social interactions between virtual entities. Submission Papers must represent high-­‐quality and previously unpublished works. Original research papers are solicited in all relevant areas (IoT, M2M, etc) on the topic of security for the completely interconnected world. All submissions will be peer reviewed by at least three experts working in the areas. The guidelines for prospective