Cybersecurity and Privacy Issues in Cyber-Physical Systems and Industrial Control Systems, 2nd Edition

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 May 2025 | Viewed by 2371

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Information Security and Communication Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-2815 Gjøvik, Norway
Interests: cybersecurity; risk management; threat analysis; critical infrastructure protection; cyber physical systems security
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Department of Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics, University of Thessaly, 382 21 Volos, Greece
2. Department of Information Security and Communication Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2815 Gjøvik, Norway
Interests: security; intrusion detection; privacy blockchain
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark
Interests: ICT security and privacy; DNS security
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are physical and engineered systems that interact with the physical environment. These systems exist everywhere around us, and range in size, complexity and criticality, from embedded systems used in smart vehicles, to SCADA systems in smart grids to control systems in water distribution systems, to smart transportation systems, to plant control systems, engineering workstations, substation equipment, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and other Industrial Control Systems (ICS). CPSs are elements of the Internet of Things (IoT) and, because they have resulted from the integration of information technology with operational technology, are central to the fourth industrial revolution and to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

As CPS and ICS proliferate, and increasingly interconnect and interact among them and with us, they present an increased cyber-attack surface. As they also increasingly affect our life, their cybersecurity becomes of paramount importance. Accordingly, research into the cybersecurity and privacy of CPSs is attracting increasing attention from both industry and academia.

In line with these efforts, the main theme of this Special Issue is to investigate novel methodologies, theories, technologies, techniques, processes, and solutions for CPS cybersecurity and privacy. In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews that present innovative ideas, proof of concepts, use cases, and results from a variety of topics relevant to ICS and CPS are welcome. Topics addressed in the submissions include but are not limited to:

  • Attacks and attack detection for CPS and ICS
  • Authentication and access control for CPS and ICS
  • Blockchain for CPS and ICS cybersecurity
  • Data security and privacy for CPS and ICS
  • Digital twin security for CPS and ICS
  • Embedded systems security
  • Formal methods for CPS and ICS cybersecurity
  • Incident Response and Digital Forensics for CPS and ICS
  • IoT and IIoT cybersecurity and privacy
  • Lightweight crypto technologies applied to CPS and ICS
  • Maritime CPS cybersecurity
  • Methods, tools and techniques for the elicitation, analysis and modeling of security requirements for CPS and ICS
  • Penetration testing for CPS and ICS
  • Recovery of CPS and ICS from cyber attacks
  • Risk management for CPS and ICS
  • Secure communication protocols for CPS and ICS
  • Security architectures for CPS and ICS
  • Security by design for CPS and ICS
  • Security testing methods and tools for CPS and ICS
  • Threat modeling for CPS and ICS
  • Vulnerability analysis for CPS and ICS

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Georgios Kavallieratos
Dr. Georgios Spathoulas
Dr. Marios Anagnostopoulos
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

  • cybersecurity
  • cyber-physical systems
  • industrial control systems
  • privacy
  • risk management
  • vulnerability assessment
  • threat modeling
  • intrusion detection
  • incident response
  • cyber security requirements engineering

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

18 pages, 1223 KiB  
Article
PLC Honeypots: Enhancing Interaction-Level Assessment
by Jessica B. Heluany
Electronics 2024, 13(20), 4024; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13204024 - 13 Oct 2024
Viewed by 2017
Abstract
The motivation for this work arose when noticing that definitions of honeypots’ interaction level are mainly based on the information technology environment and do not reflect operational technology even if several honeypot projects approach this field. Within operational technology, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) [...] Read more.
The motivation for this work arose when noticing that definitions of honeypots’ interaction level are mainly based on the information technology environment and do not reflect operational technology even if several honeypot projects approach this field. Within operational technology, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) have a main role, resulting in several honeypot researchers choosing to mimic this device at a certain interaction level. However, searching for an interaction level definition that approaches PLCs results in few studies. In this context, this work aims to explore how to adapt the information technology definition of the interaction level in order to encompass PLCs and their specific features. The method chosen to obtain inputs was a literature review where, in attempting to keep the connection with information technology, the features were based in terms of honey system, honey service, and honey token. The findings of this review provide a means to translate these terms when developing a PLC honeypot for a desired interaction level, resulting in a metrics proposal for low and high interaction. Summarizing the proposed metrics, the system of a PLC can be considered as the vendor specific firmware, its unique device banner, and a realistic network topology. For services, a PLC honeypot reflects the tasks performed by the real device, thus resulting in industrial communication protocols, network management protocols, appropriate response times, code-related interactions, dynamic input and output data processing, physical process simulation, and web interface. Lastly, a PLC honey token can be approached with the PLC program file, MIB file, and software license, among other elements. Based on these metrics, researchers can better evaluate how to design a programmable logic controller honeypot or select tools that match their target interaction level. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop