Cyber Ranges, Testbeds and Digital Twins

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, cyber-attacks—especially those targeting systems that keep or process sensitive information—are becoming more sophisticated. Critical National Infrastructures are the main targets of cyber-attacks since essential information or services depend on their systems and their protection becomes a significant issue that is concerning both organizations and nations. Attacks to such critical systems include penetrations to their network and the installation of malicious tools or programs that can reveal sensitive data or alter the behavior of specific physical equipment.

Training activities and environments that can support challenging situations, followed by concrete guidance, procedures, and tools, are needed. These platforms can help individuals to react collectively and collaboratively in different, unpredictable situations. This environment should blend simulations and emulations of real components and systems, embed different attack and defense mechanisms, and must be able to adapt to a variety of different incidents in order to be cost-effective and attractive for organizations and educational institutes. Experiential learning is an educational technique that proposes the active involvement of the participants in order to help them learn through experience. Cyber ranges are an efficient method for delivering experiential learning exercises as part of serious games. Cyber ranges are exercising environments that contain both physical and virtual components and can be used to represent realistic scenarios for training.

Prospective authors are encouraged to submit previously unpublished contributions from a broad range of topics, which include but are not limited to the following:

• Cyber range integration and federation;
• Emulation and simulation techniques (exercises, architecture, etc.);
• Hybrid system integration;
• Emerging technologies in cyber ranges;
• Econometric models in cyber security training;
• Digital twins;
• Capture the flag platforms;
• Risk assessment frameworks for training;
• Trainee evaluation and situational awareness;
• Learning methods in cyber security training certifications;
• Serious gaming and visualization;
• Cyber-exercises and strategic decision making;
• Agile development of cyber ranges.

In this Special Issue, we are interested in both academic and practical aspects of cyber security considerations in their development and use in professional cyber security training, as well as in exploring the use of emerging technologies. Aligned with the interdisciplinary nature of cyber security, authors from academia, government, and industry are welcome to contribute.

Dr. Leandros Maglaras
Dr. Ioanna Kantzavelou
Dr. Mohamed Amine Ferrag
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.