Security for Cyber–Physical Systems (CPSs)

Dear Colleagues,

Cyber–Physical Systems (CPSs) tightly integrate computation, communication, sensing, and physical processes, forming the technological foundation of critical infrastructures and modern intelligent services. CPSs are increasingly deployed in domains such as smart manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, energy systems, autonomous vehicles, industrial control systems, smart cities, and connected IoT environments. While these systems offer unprecedented levels of automation, efficiency, and intelligence, their growing connectivity and complexity also introduce significant cybersecurity risks. Security incidents in CPSs can have consequences that extend beyond information loss, potentially causing physical damage, operational disruptions, safety hazards, and threats to human well-being.

This Special Issue provides a comprehensive forum for researchers and practitioners to present recent advances in securing cyber–physical systems against emerging threats. It focuses on both the identification of novel attack vectors and the development of effective defense, detection, mitigation, and resilience mechanisms. We welcome contributions that address the unique challenges arising from the interaction between cyber components and physical processes, including resource-constrained devices, real-time operational requirements, heterogeneous networks, and safety-critical applications.

The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, cybersecurity for industrial control systems and operational technology, Internet of Things (IoT) security, edge and cloud-assisted CPS protection, AI-enabled attacks and defenses, cyber–physical attack detection, secure sensing and actuation, resilient control systems, privacy-preserving CPS, digital twins for security evaluation, autonomous system security, CPS risk assessment, threat intelligence, and security for smart infrastructure. Both theoretical and practical contributions are encouraged, including system designs, algorithms, protocols, datasets, measurement studies, testbeds, and real-world deployments.

The existing literature has extensively examined individual aspects of CPS security, such as industrial control system protection, IoT security, network intrusion detection, and secure control theory. However, the rapid evolution of CPS technologies, including artificial intelligence, autonomous decision-making, edge intelligence, digital twins, and large-scale interconnected infrastructures, has introduced new security challenges that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. This Special Issue supplements the existing literature by bringing together advances from cybersecurity, networking, control systems, embedded systems, artificial intelligence, and human-centered computing. By highlighting emerging threats and cross-disciplinary defense strategies, the Special Issue fosters a deeper understanding of CPS security challenges and stimulate innovative solutions for building trustworthy, resilient, and secure cyber–physical ecosystems.

We invite original research articles, surveys, case studies, and application-oriented contributions that advance the state of the art in CPS security and resilience.

Dr. Huadi Zhu
Dr. Srinivasan Murali
Dr. Mingyan Xiao
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-anonymized 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.

• cyber–physical systems (CPSs)
• CPS security
• cybersecurity
• industrial control systems (ICSs)
• operational technology (OT)
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• critical infrastructure protection
• smart manufacturing
• smart grid security
• autonomous systems security
• AI security
• adversarial machine learning
• intrusion detection
• anomaly detection
• resilient control systems
• edge computing security
• digital twins
• privacy and trust
• threat intelligence
• security and resilience