SPCA 2017 - Special Issue on "Security and Privacy in Cloud-Assisted Cyber-Physical Systems"

Cloud-assisted Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) feature a tight coupling between embedded computing devices and their physical environment. CPSes can be viewed as the bridge between physical components/processes and the cyber space. Specifically, the notion of CPSes is to use computing (e.g. sensing, analyzing and predicting), communication (e.g. interaction, intervene and interface management), and controlling (e.g. inter-operation, evolving and evidence-based certification) to make intelligent and autonomous systems. Recent years have seen a dramatic rise in the development of CPSes services, including ubiquitous health care, smart electricity grid, and smart buildings. However, the fast-growing data volume is hard to process. The present CPSes cannot support ultra-fast computing, and thus it cannot provide real-time and reliable services to meet the requirements, which are essential for mission-critical systems. Fortunately, cloud infrastructures and platforms can provide flexible and on-demand processing power and high-capacity storage for data streams, as well as provisioning of a variety of services using telecommunication and networking technologies. Thus, the large-scale nature of CPSes can be effectively and efficiently supported and assisted by cloud systems, which is referred to as cloud-assisted CPSes (Cloud-CPS).
The coupling of cloud systems and CPSes, though advantageous, is subject to new forms of risks that have not been considered adequately in the traditional computing domain. CPSes often collect sensitive and private information about the physical environment. A loss of security for a CPS can therefore have significant negative impact including loss of privacy, potential physical harm, discrimination, and abuse. Though numerous security primitives have been developed in the cyber domain to address the very same problems, their applicability to the Cloud-CPSes domain is still questionable due to the reason that they are usually complex to implement and oblivious to cyber-physical interactions.
The goal of this special issue is to unveil and address the security and privacy aspects associated to the Cloud-CPeSs.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to the following.
* Secure data sharing in Cloud-CPSes
* Big data security and privacy in Cloud-CPSes
* Secure computation in Cloud-CPSes
* Location privacy in Cloud-CPSes
* Lightweight block ciphers for low-resource devices in Cloud-CPSes
* Searchable encryption in Cloud-CPSes
* End to end secure communications in Cloud-CPSes
* Access control in Cloud-CPSes
* Key management in Cloud-CPSes
These topics remark the differences between the classical CPSes and Cloud-CPSes, and particularly when designing security and privacy solutions for specific Cloud-assisted CPSes applied in restricted environments with rigorous performance requirements and criticality in mind.
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Important Dates
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* Extended submission deadline: July 31, 2017
* Notification of acceptance: September 15, 2017
* Final manuscript due: October 15, 2017
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Paper Submission Guidelines
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All submitted papers to this special issue must be well written in English, and must be original and not be under review in any other journal or conference proceedings. When submitting their papers authors must select “Security in Cloud CPS” as the article type.
Submitted papers should be presented according to the journal style. For more detailed information regarding the requirements for submission, please refer to: https://www.elsevier.com/journals/computer-network....
Requests for additional information should be addressed to the guest editors.
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Guest Editors
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Cristina Alcaraz, University of Malaga, alcaraz-AT-lcc.uma.es
Xinyi Huang, Fujian Normal University, xyhuang81-AT-gmail.com
Erich Rome, Fraunhofer, erich.rome-AT-iais.fraunhofer.de