Information Security and Privacy in Intelligent Internet of Things

Dear Colleagues,

The Intelligent Internet of Things (I-IoT) is a convergence of edge computing, artificial intelligence, and smart ubiquitous systems. The I-IoT enables autonomous, data-driven decision-making in areas such as smart cities, industry, healthcare, and transportation. But as the I-IoT extends to billions of nodes, it poses unprecedented threats. The conventional security model fails in securing these cyber-physicals against adaptive zero-day attacks, side-channel attacks, or AI-driven inference attacks. This exciting Special Issue invites cutting-edge research that redefines security and privacy for hyper-connected, intelligent ecosystems.

We invite contributions addressing foundational challenges and emergent threats. Topics include resource-efficient cryptographic primitives for limited resource-constrained devices, security systems that mitigate model inversion attacks, model-poisoning attacks, trust mechanisms on a blockchain foundation for device trust, and differential privacy mechanisms for high-rate streams, as well as a host of other topics. Submissions must demonstrate rigorous security systems, combining verification and adversarial modelling. In any case, resilience assessment, using prototypes, testbeds, or simulation, is a prerequisite.

Suggested Topics:

1. Post-Quantum Cryptography for I-IoT Edge Nodes—Lattice-based schemes and key encapsulation for 8-bit MCUs.
2. Adversarial Robustness in Distributed I-IoT Machine Learning—Defences against data poisoning and Byzantine faults in federated settings.
3. Zero-Trust Architectures with Continuous Authentication—Risk-adaptive policies using behavioural biometrics and device telemetry.
4. Privacy-Preserving Aggregation in Smart Grids—Homomorphic encryption and secure multiparty computation for load balancing.
5. Securing IoT and Edge nodes against intelligent DDoS attacks—AI-enhanced DDoS detection systems.
6. Blockchain and DLT for Immutable Audit Trails—Consortium models mitigating 51% attacks in industrial consortia.
7. Side-Channel Mitigation in AI Accelerators—Countermeasures against power/EM analysis in edge TPUs.
8. Differential Privacy for Time-Series Sensor Data—Dynamic noise injection preserving utility in anomaly detection.
9. Regulatory Compliance via Automated Provenance Tracking—GDPR/CCPA-aligned frameworks using verifiable data lineages.

Manuscripts should advance the state of research in this field with reproducible artifacts and threat models grounded in real I-IoT protocols. Priority will be given to work that bridges theory and practical implementation, offering measurable security gains under constrained latency, energy, and bandwidth.

Dr. Eric Gyamfi
Dr. James Adu Ansere
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. 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.