Security and Privacy for Emerging Technologies

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Computer Science & Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 February 2026 | Viewed by 272

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Computer Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 211106, China
Interests: blockchain cryptography; blockchain-powered application; new blockchain architecture; attacks in blockchain
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Guest Editor
Department of Cryptography and Network Security, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
Interests: public key cryptography; private computation; AI security; blockchain privacy preservation

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Guest Editor
School of Information and Software Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China
Interests: cryptography; network security
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid advancement of emerging technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, quantum computing, and 5G, has revolutionized modern society, bringing transformative benefits across various sectors, including healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and smart cities. However, their integration also introduces unprecedented security and privacy challenges due to their complexity, scalability, and pervasive nature. Addressing these challenges is therefore critical to ensuring the safe and trustworthy adoption of these innovations.

This Special Issue on "Security and Privacy for Emerging Technologies" provides a platform for researchers and practitioners to explore cutting-edge solutions that enhance security and privacy in the context of emerging technologies. The featured topics will align with the journal’s focus on applied and interdisciplinary approaches, bridging theory with practice.

The Special Issue seeks to promote innovative methodologies, frameworks, and systems to address current and future challenges in emerging technologies. We therefore invite high-quality submissions that contribute to advancing our understanding of security and privacy issues in this domain.

Themes and Suggested Article Types:

In this Special Issue, we welcome original research articles and comprehensive review papers. Suggested themes include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Security frameworks for IoT and cyber-physical systems;
  • Privacy-preserving techniques in AI and machine learning applications;
  • Blockchain for secure and decentralized applications;
  • Quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms;
  • Secure communication protocols for 5G and beyond;
  • Trust and reputation management in distributed systems;
  • Vulnerability detection and mitigation in emerging technologies;
  • AI-driven cybersecurity solutions;
  • Case studies and real-world implementations of security architectures;
  • Ethical and regulatory considerations for privacy in emerging technologies.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Liming Fang
Prof. Dr. Jun Zhou
Prof. Dr. Hu Xiong
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • emerging technologies
  • security frameworks
  • privacy-preserving techniques
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • artificial intelligence
  • blockchain
  • 5G security
  • quantum cryptography
  • cyber-physical systems
  • cybersecurity

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 1212 KiB  
Article
DCSCY: DRL-Based Cross-Shard Smart Contract Yanking in a Blockchain Sharding Framework
by Ying Wang, Zixu Zhang, Hongbo Yin, Guangsheng Yu, Xu Wang, Caijun Sun, Wei Ni, Ren Ping Liu and Zhiqun Cheng
Electronics 2025, 14(16), 3254; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14163254 (registering DOI) - 16 Aug 2025
Abstract
Blockchain sharding has emerged as a promising solution to address scalability and performance challenges in distributed ledger systems. In the sharded blockchain, yanking can reduce the communication overhead of smart contracts between shards. However, the existing smart contract yanking methods are inefficient, increasing [...] Read more.
Blockchain sharding has emerged as a promising solution to address scalability and performance challenges in distributed ledger systems. In the sharded blockchain, yanking can reduce the communication overhead of smart contracts between shards. However, the existing smart contract yanking methods are inefficient, increasing the latency and reducing the throughput. In this paper, we propose a novel DRL-Based Cross-Shard Smart Contract Yanking (DCSCY) framework which intelligently balances three critical factors: the number of smart contracts processed, node waiting time, and yanking costs. The proposed framework dynamically optimizes the relocation trajectory of smart contracts across shards. This reduces the communication overhead and enables adaptive, function-level migrations to enhance the execution efficiency. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach reduces the cross-shard transaction latency and enhances smart contract utilization. Compared to random-based and order-based methods, the DCSCY approach achieves a performance improvement of more than 95%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy for Emerging Technologies)
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