Topic Editors

Associate Professor, School of Cyberspace Security, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
College of Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA E4249, USA

Recent Advances in Security, Privacy, and Trust, 2nd Edition

Abstract submission deadline
28 February 2027
Manuscript submission deadline
31 May 2027
Viewed by
5099

Topic Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the second edition of our previous and successful Topic “Recent Advances in Security, Privacy, and Trust”.

The proliferation of information, communication, and computer technologies has brought us into the realm of the cyber–physical–social system (CPSS). The CPSS comprises cyber space, physical space, and social space, and their integration into such systems as cyber-physical systems (CPSs), the Internet of Things (IoT), social media, and even a system that integrates all three spaces. Recently, the CPSS has brought enormous opportunities that have significantly influenced how technologies are implemented; however, there are increasing security, privacy, and trust concerns, such as the exposure of user privacy and business information in the CPSS. Although theories and technologies regarding security, privacy, and trust have been widely studied and applied in recent years, existing methods remain insecure, impractical, or inefficient. To address these challenges, this Topic solicits articles reflecting the latest research outcomes and developments in security, privacy, and trust.

In light of growing concerns over the sustainability of technological ecosystems, this Topic seeks to explore the sustainable development of security, privacy, and trust frameworks, emphasizing environmentally friendly approaches, resource efficiency, and the long-term viability of security technologies—submissions of research that addresses these challenges while reflecting the latest innovations in ensuring sustainable and resilient systems across various domains are particularly encouraged. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

  • Privacy-enhancing technologies;
  • Privacy-preserving/secure/trust data analysis and processing;
  • Network security, privacy, and trust;
  • Differentially private data analysis;
  • Sustainable security, privacy, and trust;
  • Economics of security, privacy, and trust;
  • Blockchain and its applications;
  • IoT/CPS/CPSS security, privacy, and trust;
  • Security, privacy, and trust in edge/fog/cloud computing;
  • AI/Machine learning security;
  • Federated learning;
  • System security;
  • Hardware security;
  • Web security, privacy, and trust;
  • Big data, artificial intelligence for security, privacy, and trust;
  • Digital twin security, privacy, and trust;
  • Cryptographic techniques, cryptographic protocols.

Dr. Jun Feng
Dr. Changqing Luo
Topic Editors

Keywords

  • security
  • privacy
  • trust
  • cyberspace security
  • cryptography

Participating Journals

Journal Name Impact Factor CiteScore Launched Year First Decision (median) APC
Cryptography
cryptography
2.4 6.4 2017 19.9 Days CHF 1800 Submit
Electronics
electronics
2.9 7.0 2012 14.8 Days CHF 2400 Submit
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
ijgi
3.2 6.7 2012 34.9 Days CHF 1900 Submit
Journal of Cybersecurity and Privacy
jcp
3.8 8.8 2021 23.7 Days CHF 1200 Submit
Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction
make
8.4 12.7 2019 18.7 Days CHF 1800 Submit
Mathematics
mathematics
2.3 5.4 2013 17.4 Days CHF 2600 Submit
Sustainability
sustainability
4.1 8.9 2009 16.9 Days CHF 2400 Submit

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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21 pages, 4335 KB  
Article
Quishing: A Sociotechnical Framework for Understanding QR-Code Phishing Risks and User-Centered Protection Strategies
by Pedro-David Filio-Aguilar, Rubén Mil-Martínez and Lourdes López-García
J. Cybersecur. Priv. 2026, 6(4), 134; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcp6040134 - 8 Aug 2026
Viewed by 815
Abstract
The widespread use of Quick Response (QR) codes increases exposure to QR-code-based phishing, or quishing. This study examines the mechanisms, user behaviors, and contextual conditions that shape QR-mediated risk from a sociotechnical perspective. A structured literature review and narrative synthesis were conducted using [...] Read more.
The widespread use of Quick Response (QR) codes increases exposure to QR-code-based phishing, or quishing. This study examines the mechanisms, user behaviors, and contextual conditions that shape QR-mediated risk from a sociotechnical perspective. A structured literature review and narrative synthesis were conducted using four documented search strings. Following deduplication, screening, retrieval, and full-text assessment, 27 studies were included from 71 identified records. Two reviewers independently evaluated methodological quality using six criteria. The corpus comprised 16 technical-detection studies, five user-centered or behavioral studies, two attack demonstrations or simulations, and four reviews or preventive frameworks. The mean consensus quality score was 10.04 out of 12; 19 studies were classified as high quality and eight as moderate quality. The synthesis indicates that quishing exploits the interaction of contextual legitimacy, routine scanning, limited destination visibility, and insufficient verification before navigation or disclosure of sensitive information. These findings informed an attack lifecycle, a sociotechnical model, a user security decision flow, a risk–protection mapping, and multilevel recommendations. These literature-derived artifacts are conceptual and heuristic rather than empirically validated. Effective mitigation therefore requires QR-specific verification mechanisms combined with behavioral and technical safeguards for users, interfaces, organizations, and platforms, followed by expert, usability, and experimental validation. Full article
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28 pages, 4639 KB  
Article
Collaborative Multimodal Entity Linking via Multi-Channel Neural Cross-Modal Interaction with Synergistic Consistency Optimization
by Huayu Li, Xiaotong He, Hongjuan Pei, Yujie Yuan, Kai Liu and Peiying Zhang
Electronics 2026, 15(15), 3414; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics15153414 - 2 Aug 2026
Viewed by 262
Abstract
Multimodal entity linking (MEL) grounds entity mentions in text-image contexts to entries in a structured knowledge base; however, most existing systems still decompose a multimodal document into independent mention-level decisions. This formulation overlooks a central tension of real-world MEL: the evidence needed to [...] Read more.
Multimodal entity linking (MEL) grounds entity mentions in text-image contexts to entries in a structured knowledge base; however, most existing systems still decompose a multimodal document into independent mention-level decisions. This formulation overlooks a central tension of real-world MEL: the evidence needed to disambiguate an ambiguous mention is often distributed across co-occurring mentions, visual context, and cross-modal consistency, rather than being contained in the mention itself. To address this limitation, we propose Collaborative Entity Linking through Multichannel Interaction (CELMI), a four-channel framework that jointly models textual semantics, visual perception, cross-modal alignment, and inter-mention collaboration. CELMI employs dual-level textual alignment, text-guided visual gating, learned cross-modal projection, and attention-based entity graph propagation. To stabilize joint optimization, we further introduce a multi-channel consistency objective that combines per-channel contrastive losses with an overall ranking loss, reducing channel dominance and representation collapse. Among conventional non-LLM/VLM MEL models, CELMI achieves the strongest MRR and Hits@1 performance on WikiMEL, RichpediaMEL, and WikiDiverse, with Hits@1 scores of 89.03% on WikiMEL and 83.02% on RichpediaMEL; LLM/VLM systems remain stronger on WikiDiverse, positioning CELMI as a lightweight complement. Progressive stress ablation shows a 38.50 percentage-point absolute Hits@1 drop when the architecture is reduced to a single unimodal endpoint, confirming that the gains arise from synergistic channel interaction rather than isolated module effects. Full article
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25 pages, 2239 KB  
Article
Privacy Usability Evaluation of IoT Smart Home Companion Application: A Pilot Study of the ABCDE Privacy Framework with an Industrial Multidisciplinary Team
by Amparo Coiduras-Sanagustín, Eduardo Manchado-Pérez and César García-Hernández
J. Cybersecur. Priv. 2026, 6(4), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcp6040114 - 1 Jul 2026
Viewed by 579
Abstract
Privacy usability in IoT smart home companion applications remains an underexplored domain despite mounting regulatory requirements and accelerating user adoption. Heuristic evaluation offers a scalable pathway to privacy usability assessment, yet validated frameworks for applying such methods are scarce. This study presents the [...] Read more.
Privacy usability in IoT smart home companion applications remains an underexplored domain despite mounting regulatory requirements and accelerating user adoption. Heuristic evaluation offers a scalable pathway to privacy usability assessment, yet validated frameworks for applying such methods are scarce. This study presents the first empirical application of the ABCDE Privacy Framework, a ten-heuristic instrument grounded in Nielsen’s usability principles and Privacy by Design, to an IoT companion application developed with a major European home appliance manufacturer. A structured workshop was conducted with a multidisciplinary team of seven participants (five industry professionals and two researchers) following a two-round protocol: a qualitative heuristic discussion phase (Round 1) and an individual scoring phase (Round 2). Data were analysed through MAXQDA (VERBI Software, Berlin, Germany). Average heuristic scores ranged from 3.6 (H9: error recovery) to 4.8 (H6: recognition; H10: documentation), with an overall mean of 4.32. Six second-order themes were identified, including Transparency Asymmetry, Centralised but Decontextualised Privacy, and Shared Household Complexity. This first pilot application suggests that the ABCDE Privacy Framework is feasible, time-efficient, and analytically productive in this industrial context, generating design-relevant insights and enabling cross-role team alignment within a two-hour session. These preliminary findings indicate its potential as a tool for Privacy-by-Design practice in IoT product development and provide a basis for future replication and validation. Full article
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19 pages, 313 KB  
Article
Evaluation of Homomorphic Encryption Integration Strategies in Database Management Systems
by Henrique Jorge, Cristina Wanzeller and João Henriques
J. Cybersecur. Priv. 2026, 6(4), 110; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcp6040110 - 27 Jun 2026
Viewed by 711
Abstract
Homomorphic Encryption (HE) has emerged as a promising approach for data processing without exposing sensitive information. Despite significant advances, the practical strategies for the integration of HE into widely used database management systems (DBMSs) remain limited due to performance constraints and architectural challenges. [...] Read more.
Homomorphic Encryption (HE) has emerged as a promising approach for data processing without exposing sensitive information. Despite significant advances, the practical strategies for the integration of HE into widely used database management systems (DBMSs) remain limited due to performance constraints and architectural challenges. This paper explores HE integration strategies within DBMS, focusing on SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB. A methodology is proposed to assess the feasibility and performance of multiple HE schemes, including BFV, CKKS, BGV, TFHE, Paillier, and RSA (without padding). The evaluation considers different integration strategies, namely Python-based execution and native C++ extensions, across Windows and Debian environments. Experimental results obtained from four configurations demonstrate that the choice of HE scheme and integration strategy significantly impacts performance. Lattice-based schemes (BFV, CKKS, BGV) provide a balanced trade-off between functionality and efficiency, while TFHE incurs high computational costs due to its bit-level design. Native C++ integrations consistently outperform Python-based approaches, although the latter offer greater flexibility and ease of development. The findings highlight the feasibility of integrating HE into DBMS while emphasizing the importance of selecting appropriate schemes and integration mechanisms to meet application-specific requirements. The proposed evaluation framework provides preliminary insights into the relative behavior of different HE schemes and integration strategies under controlled experimental conditions, supporting future work on privacy-preserving DBMS design. Full article
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53 pages, 6100 KB  
Article
SoK: An In-Depth Analysis of Intrusion Detection Systems Based on System Calls
by Lalie Arnoud, Victor Breux, Pierre-Henri Thevenon and Éric Gaussier
J. Cybersecur. Priv. 2026, 6(3), 99; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcp6030099 - 6 Jun 2026
Viewed by 1505
Abstract
The increase and professionalization of cyberattacks calls for the development of relevant defense-in-depth mechanisms of which intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are essential components. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of system call-based IDSs as intelligence for detecting malicious activities. A systematic analysis of [...] Read more.
The increase and professionalization of cyberattacks calls for the development of relevant defense-in-depth mechanisms of which intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are essential components. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of system call-based IDSs as intelligence for detecting malicious activities. A systematic analysis of 209 publications from the scientific literature between 1996 and early 2026 highlights trends in this field of research and defines a taxonomy presenting the different approaches proposed by researchers. Eighteen state-of-the-art methods, representative of the diversity of approaches proposed in the literature, were reproduced and evaluated on two public datasets, ADFA-LD and NGIDS-DS. The detection performance and overhead of each method are examined in great detail, opening discussions on the shortcomings of the state of the art, limitations of system call-based IDSs, and lines of research that would enable this type of detection system to meet the challenges of deployment in a real-world environment. Finally, recommendations for future work are derived from these findings. Full article
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