Next-Generation Cybersecurity Intelligence: AI-Driven Defense, Quantum-Safe Systems, and Resilient Digital and Environmental Ecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

The digital, physical, and environmental worlds are being increasingly interwoven, exposing cyber–physical systems and data ecosystems to rapidly evolving threats, ranging from adversarial AI to the coming disruption of large‑scale quantum computing. This Special Issue aims to advance the state of practice and science in the field of cybersecurity by bringing together AI‑driven defense, quantum‑safe cryptography, and systems‑level resilience across hyperconnected infrastructures. We seek rigorous research that combines learning‑based intelligence (e.g., LLMs, diffusion models) with principled security engineering (zero‑trust, formal methods, verifiable cryptography), as well as studies that integrate human factors, governance, and ethics.

The Systems journal emphasizes holistic, cross‑disciplinary thinking about complex adaptive systems. This Special Issue frames cybersecurity as a multi‑scale systems problem—spanning algorithms, socio‑technical processes, and environmental contexts—prioritizing reproducible methods, open benchmarks, and end‑to‑end evaluation in real deployments. We welcome papers that include theory, methods, datasets, and applications used to model, analyze, and harden complex digital ecosystems.

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

• Intelligent and autonomous security systems;
• Generative AI and LLM security;
• Post‑quantum cryptography and quantum‑safe systems;
• Emerging technology security (e.g., edge/5G, XR, AR/VR);
• Resilient cyber–physical systems and environmental protection;
• Modeling digital ecosystems as complex adaptive systems;
• Zero‑trust and supply chain security;
• Privacy and ethics in hyperconnected ecosystems;
• Multi-modal and multi‑domain datasets and benchmarks;
• Diffusion models (security, robustness, evaluation);
• Cryptography, encryption, and key‑management techniques;
• Federated learning (privacy‑preserving, secure aggregation);
• Network security, intrusion detection, and threat intelligence;
• Cloud security, privacy, and trust management;
• Blockchain and distributed‑ledger technologies for secure systems;
• Secure software development, testing, and vulnerability assessment;
• Human factors, social engineering, and cybersecurity awareness;
• Cybercrime, digital forensics, and incident response;
• Privacy, data protection, and compliance (e.g., GDPR, CCPA);
• Cybersecurity policies, governance, and risk‑management frameworks;
• Emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures;
• AI, machine learning, and big data analytics for cybersecurity;
• IoT, embedded systems, and hardware security;
• Quantum computing and post‑quantum cryptography;
• Cybersecurity education, training, and workforce development;
• Applications of large language models (LLMs) in cybersecurity;
• Natural language processing (NLP) for cyber‑threat intelligence;
• Secure and privacy‑preserving LLM architectures and training methods;
• Ethical considerations and responsible deployment of LLMs in cybersecurity;
• Diffusion models for adversarial machine learning in cybersecurity;
• Digital forensics;
• Generative adversarial networks (GANs) for cybersecurity applications;
• Adversarial attacks and defenses in ML‑based cybersecurity systems.

Dr. Anas M. Alsobeh
Guest Editor

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. Systems is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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.