[agents] CFP: Special Issue on "Security and Privacy in Cloud-Assisted Cyber-Physical Systems" in Computer Networks Journal (Elsevier)

[Cristina Alcaraz]

*** Apologies for multiple copies ***

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C a l l     F o r     P a p e r s

COMPUTER NETWORKS JOURNAL   -   Elsevier

Special Issue:   Security and Privacy in Cloud-Assisted Cyber-Physical 
Systems

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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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* Submission deadline: June 30, 2017
* Notification of acceptance: August 31, 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-networks/1389-1286/guide-for-authors.

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