Intelligent and Privacy-Preserving Security for the Internet of Things

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid proliferation of the Internet of Things has significantly transformed modern society by enabling ubiquitous connectivity among smart devices, cyber–physical systems, edge platforms, and cloud infrastructures. However, the massive deployment of heterogeneous, resource-constrained, and highly interconnected IoT devices has also introduced critical security and privacy challenges. These challenges include device authentication, secure communication, data protection, privacy preservation, intrusion detection, malware analysis, trust management, and resilience against emerging cyber threats.

This Special Issue aims to provide a forum for researchers, practitioners, and industry experts to present recent advances, innovative solutions, and emerging trends in IoT security and privacy. We welcome high-quality original research articles, reviews, and case studies that address theoretical foundations, practical mechanisms, system implementations, and real-world applications related to securing IoT ecosystems.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Security architectures and protocols for IoT systems;
• Lightweight cryptography and authentication mechanisms;
• Privacy-preserving data collection, sharing, and analytics;
• Intrusion detection and anomaly detection in IoT networks;
• Malware detection, vulnerability analysis, and threat intelligence for IoT devices;
• Blockchain, distributed ledger, and decentralized trust management for IoT;
• Security and privacy in edge, fog, and cloud-assisted IoT environments;
• AI- and machine-learning-based security solutions for IoT;
• Federated learning and privacy-preserving machine learning in IoT;
• Secure firmware, hardware security, and trusted execution for IoT devices;
• Security of industrial IoT, smart healthcare, smart cities, vehicular IoT, and smart grids;
• Digital twins, cyber–physical systems, and metaverse-related IoT security;
• Formal verification, risk assessment, and security evaluation of IoT systems;
• Regulatory, ethical, and compliance issues in IoT privacy and data protection.

The Internet of Things has become a fundamental enabler of digital transformation across domains such as smart homes, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, energy, and urban infrastructure. As IoT ecosystems continue to expand, they increasingly handle sensitive data and support mission-critical services, making security and privacy essential requirements rather than optional features. Meanwhile, the constrained resources, large-scale deployment, heterogeneous communication protocols, and dynamic operating environments of IoT devices create unique challenges that cannot be fully addressed by traditional cybersecurity techniques.

This Special Issue, titled “Intelligent and Privacy-Preserving Security for the Internet of Things”, seeks to collect state-of-the-art research contributions that explore novel theories, technologies, frameworks, and applications for protecting IoT systems against evolving threats. Contributions may focus on lightweight and scalable security mechanisms, privacy-enhancing technologies, AI-driven threat detection, secure edge–cloud collaboration, trustworthy data management, and domain-specific IoT security solutions. The goal of this Special Issue is to advance the understanding, design, implementation, and evaluation of secure and privacy-preserving IoT systems, while fostering interdisciplinary discussions among academia, industry, and standardization communities.

Dr. Rui Hao
Dr. Yuying Li
Dr. Xiuting Ge
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• Internet of Things
• IoT security
• IoT privacy
• lightweight cryptography
• authentication and access control
• secure communication
• intrusion detection
• anomaly detection
• malware detection
• privacy-preserving computing
• federated learning
• edge computing security
• cloud-assisted IoT
• blockchain for IoT
• trust management
• industrial IoT security
• cyber–physical systems
• smart city security
• AI for cybersecurity
• data protection