Cybersecurity, Intelligent Systems Security, and Trustworthy Electronic Systems

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid evolution of electronic systems—ranging from embedded devices and IoT ecosystems to cloud–edge platforms and AI-driven automation—has fundamentally reshaped the cybersecurity landscape. Modern electronic environments now integrate sensing, communication, computation, and intelligence, creating complex attack surfaces that demand innovative approaches for securing data, infrastructure, and intelligent decision-making processes.

This Special Issue, “Cybersecurity, Intelligent Systems Security, and Trustworthy Electronic Systems”, seeks high-quality contributions that advance the design, analysis, and protection of next-generation electronic systems. Our goal is to bring together research that strengthens the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and resilience of technologies central to modern electronics.

We invite papers addressing topics such as secure architectures, hardware and firmware security, intrusion detection, cryptographic mechanisms, AI/ML-based defense strategies, secure IoT and edge computing, cyber–physical system protection, and methods for ensuring trustworthy and explainable intelligent systems. Submissions exploring the intersection of electronics and cybersecurity—including anomaly detection in sensor networks, the security of autonomous and embedded platforms, and the protection of AI-enabled electronic applications—are particularly encouraged.

While cybersecurity and electronic systems have individually rich bodies of literature, contemporary challenges increasingly require integrated perspectives. Attacks on critical infrastructure, connected vehicles, smart grids, medical devices, and industrial automation show that vulnerabilities arise not only from software and networks but also from hardware, firmware, and the intelligent behaviors embedded within today’s electronics. This Special Issue aims to complement existing scholarship by offering a unified venue for research that bridges system design, intelligent functionality, security analytics, and resilience engineering.

We welcome contributions from academia, industry, and government that present novel models, frameworks, empirical studies, prototypes, and interdisciplinary approaches. Together, these works will help advance the security and trustworthiness of the electronic systems that underpin our interconnected world.

We look forward to your valuable contributions.

Digital Forensics

• Cloud, Edge, and Fog Forensics;
• IoT, Smart Home, and Wearable Device Forensics;
• Mobile Device Forensics (Android, iOS, Vehicle/OBD-II, UAVs);
• Network Forensics and Packet-Level Evidence Analysis;
• Memory Forensics and Volatile Evidence Extraction;
• Malware Forensics and Reverse Engineering;
• Ransomware Investigation and Crypto-Tracing;
• Artificial Intelligence for Automated Forensics;
• Steganography, Anti-Forensics, and Counter-Anti-Forensics Techniques;
• Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Forensics.

Cybersecurity

• Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDS/IPS/EDR/XDR);
• Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) and Indicators of Compromise (IoCs);
• Vulnerability Analysis, Penetration Testing, and Exploit Mitigation;
• Cyber–Physical Systems and Industrial Control System Security (ICS/SCADA);
• Secure Software Development, Code Auditing, and Software Supply Chain Security;
• Zero-Trust Architectures and Secure Access Controls;
• Applications of AI/ML for Cyber Defense;
• Adversarial Machine Learning and Model Poisoning Attacks.

Information Assurance

• Risk Assessment, Cyber Governance, and Compliance (NIST, ISO 27001, SOC2);
• Security Policies, Access Control Models, and Trust Frameworks;
• Data Integrity, Authenticity, and Non-Repudiation Techniques;
• Resilience Engineering, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery;
• Digital Evidence Management and Chain of Custody;
• Privacy Preservation Techniques (Differential Privacy, PETs);
• Security for Distributed Systems and Federated Environments.

Multimedia and Emerging Technologies

• Tampering Detection in Images, Audio, and Video;
• Deepfake Detection and Synthetic Media Forensics;
• Video Surveillance, Event Detection, and Forensic Video Reconstruction;
• VR/AR/XR Security and Privacy Challenges;
• Biometric Security and Multimodal Authentication;
• Natural Language Processing for Threat Detection and Cybercrime Analysis;
• Big Data Analytics for Cyber Threat Hunting.

Application-Specific Domains

• Healthcare and Biomedical Informatics Security;
• Automotive and Autonomous Vehicle Forensics and Security;
• Smart Cities, Smart Grids, and Critical Infrastructure Security;
• Financial Fraud Analysis and Digital Crime Investigation;
• Online Harassment, Social Media Forensics, and Behavioral Profiling.

Dr. Ashar Neyaz
Dr. Narasimha Shashidhar
Prof. Dr. Cihan Varol
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. Electronics 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.

• cybersecurity
• information assurance
• incident response
• digital forensics
• forensic readiness
• malware analysis
• memory forensics
• mobile and IoT forensics
• cloud and edge forensics
• threat intelligence
• intrusion detection and prevention
• adversarial machine learning
• cyber–physical systems security
• network security
• cryptography and secure systems
• risk management and governance
• business continuity and resilience
• privacy and data integrity
• secure system design