Advances in Provable and Practical Security—ProvSec 2025

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will mainly be composed of extended versions of papers presented at the 19th International Conference on Provable and Practical Security (ProvSec 2025, in Yokohama, Japan, on 10–12 October 2025; https://sulab-sever.u-aizu.ac.jp/provsec2025/index.html). This Special Issue also seeks original papers that present novel research results that cover all aspects of provable and practical security.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Extended versions of ProvSec 2025 papers should cite the original paper and contain at least 50% new content (e.g., in the form of technical extensions, more in-depth evaluations, or additional use cases). Further, these extended papers should not directly quote or use more than 30% of the original conference paper.

This Special Issue also welcomes original papers (not presented at ProvSec 2025) that discuss theories, techniques, implementations, applications, and practical experiences on a variety of topics. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• Provable security for asymmetric cryptography;
• Provable security for symmetric cryptography;
• Provable security for physical attacks;
• Privacy and anonymity technologies;
• Secure cryptographic protocols and applications;
• Security notions, approaches, and paradigms;
• Leakage-resilient cryptography;
• Post-quantum cryptography;
• Blockchain and cryptocurrency;
• IoT security;
• Cloud security;
• AI security;
• Access control;
• Privacy-enhancing technologies;
• Database security;
• Big data security and privacy;
• Biometric security;
• Network security;
• Formal methods for security;
• Embedded systems security;
• Lightweight security;
• Cyber–physical security.

Dr. Shi-Feng Sun
Dr. Xiaoning Liu
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Cryptography is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly 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 1600 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.

• cryptography
• IoT security
• network security
• privacy and security