Secure Networking: Advances in Network Attack Detection and Protocol Security
A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Networks".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 February 2026
Special Issue Editors
Interests: network traffic analysis; network protocol security
Interests: malware detection; vulnerability detection
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: network security
Interests: software and systems security; AI security
Special Issue Information
Dear colleagues:
The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented expansion of the attack surface, driven by cloud–edge convergence, massive IoT deployments, and the rapid evolution of 5G/6G and Internet infrastructures. Sophisticated adversaries now blend zero-day exploitation, protocol ossification abuse, and cross-layer stealth techniques that routinely evade legacy, signature-based defenses. At the same time, the Internet’s protocol stack—our common lingua franca—remains the critical foundation of global connectivity; weaknesses in transport security (e.g., TLS), DNS, routing (e.g., BGP hijacking), or emerging low-power IoT protocols can destabilize entire ecosystems. Addressing these threats demands a fusion of disciplines: network measurement, fuzzing, cryptography, formal verification, machine learning, and LLM must converge to deliver next-generation attack detection and protocol hardening.
This Special Issue therefore seeks high-quality research and tutorial papers that bridge theory and practice in network attack detection and protocol security. We encourage prospective authors to submit related distinguished research papers on the subject of both theoretical approaches and practical case reviews.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Routing security;
- DNS and HTTP security;
- Network transportation security;
- Network attack detection;
- Protocol security analysis;
- Security measurement;
- IoT security;
- 5G/6G security;
- Situation awareness;
- Adversarial-aware detection models;
- Formal verification and model checking of protocol stacks;
- Fuzzing, symbolic execution, and differential testing for network protocols;
- Protocol Vulnerability Discovery;
- Attack simulation testbeds and cyber ranges;
- Cyber–physical/ICS and vehicular network security;
- Dataset generation, curation, and benchmark design for network attack and defense.
Dr. Jiahao Cao
Dr. Pengbin Feng
Dr. Renjie Xie
Dr. Xinda Wang
Dr. Qihang Zhou
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.
Keywords
- network attack detection
- network protocol security
- cyber security
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