Intelligent and Autonomous Cyber Defense Systems
A special issue of Digital (ISSN 2673-6470).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 36
Special Issue Editor
Interests: cybersecurity; artificial intelligence; face recognition; information security; steganography; steganalysis; cryptography; digital forensics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The increasing complexity, scale, and sophistication of cyber threats have rendered traditional rule-based security mechanisms insufficient for protecting modern digital infrastructures. As cyberattacks become more dynamic and adaptive, there is a growing need for intelligent and autonomous defense systems capable of detecting, analyzing, and responding to threats in real time with minimal human intervention.
Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and reinforcement learning have enabled the development of autonomous cybersecurity solutions that can learn from evolving attack patterns, adapt to new environments, and proactively mitigate risks. These intelligent systems are particularly relevant in large-scale and distributed environments such as cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), critical infrastructure, and cyber–physical systems.
This Special Issue aims to bring together cutting-edge research on the design, development, and deployment of intelligent and autonomous cyber defense systems. We seek contributions that address both theoretical advancements and practical implementations, with a focus on resilience, adaptability, and trustworthiness in AI-driven security solutions.
We invite original research articles, comprehensive reviews, and case studies that explore innovative approaches to autonomous cyber defense and its real-world applications.
Topics of Interest
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Autonomous intrusion detection and prevention systems;
- AI-driven threat detection and incident response;
- Reinforcement learning for adaptive cyber defense;
- Self-healing and self-adaptive security systems;
- Intelligent security orchestration and automation (SOAR);
- Cyber defense in cloud, edge, and IoT environments;
- Multi-agent systems for cybersecurity;
- Human–AI collaboration in cyber defense;
- Explainable and trustworthy AI for security operations;
- Adversarial resilience in autonomous defense systems;
- Real-time threat intelligence and automated response;
- Behavioral analytics and anomaly detection;
- Cyber deception techniques using AI;
- Secure and resilient cyber–physical systems;
- Benchmarking and evaluation of autonomous defense mechanisms;
- Ethical, legal, and governance challenges in autonomous cybersecurity.
Dr. Saman Shojae Chaeikar
Guest Editor
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. Digital 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 1200 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.
Keywords
- autonomous cybersecurity
- intelligent cyber defense
- AI in cybersecurity
- intrusion detection
- reinforcement learning
- adaptive security
- SOAR
- anomaly detection
- cyber resilience
- AI-driven security
- threat intelligence
- cyber–physical systems
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