Guest editorial: Information, network and communications security

Today's society is a high-tech information society. The way of information transmission is constantly improving, from manual transmission to wired network transmission, from wired network to wireless network transmission. With the network increasingly becoming the necessary means and tools for the rapid development of all walks of life, the importance of network security is beyond doubt. In the environment of increasing informatization level, the importance of information, network and communication security is also increasing. Modern society relies more and more on computer communication networks. Once the network communication is insecure, all kinds of resources of our personal information will be intercepted and copied, including property passwords or ID card numbers, which will threaten our property security, and even affect national economic development, social stability, and national defence security. However, we cannot deny the convenience and rapidity brought by informatization. Therefore, in view of the impact, risks and existing problems of information, network and communication security, this topic aims to bring relevant researchers from the industry and academia together for discussion. This special issue focuses on research ideas and experimental studies related to “Information, Network, and Communications Security”, covering the development and design of security policies and algorithms in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and wireless communication networks.

In this Special Issue, we have received 10 papers, all of which underwent peer review. Of the 10 originally submitted papers, 3 have been accepted and 2 have been ‘rejected’, that is, they did not meet the Electronics Letters criteria for rapid publication. Thus, the overall submissions were of high quality, which marks the success of this Special Issue.

The three papers that were finally accepted can be classified into three main categories according to their research scenarios, that is, blockchain, IoT, and wireless communication networks. The first category of papers focuses on intrusion detection systems in blockchain, and the research aims to further improve the security of multiple industries such as finance, healthcare, and cybersecurity. The second category of papers focuses on the vulnerability of devices in the Internet of Things to cyberattacks such as remote infiltration, and the research can further ensure the security of sensitive data of governments, enterprises, and individuals. The third category of papers addresses the vulnerability of wireless communication networks to strong interference that affects the BER and thus threatens communication security. A brief presentation of each of the paper in this special issue is given as follows:

Abubakar et al. address the problem of high false alarm rates in intrusion detection systems due to insufficient training data and improper threshold selection and propose a blockchain integration architecture that utilizes the fusion principle and weighted voting methods to improve accuracy while reducing false alarm rates. The experiments were proven effective on datasets from DARPA 99 and MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Their approach opens up new opportunities for the development of high-accuracy networks.

Pan et al. provide a comprehensive and detailed overview of the security risks currently faced by networked printers, illustrate security monitoring platforms and attack detection methods, and analyze the results of actual monitoring. In particular, the most comprehensive knowledge base on the characteristics of networked printers is organized and published.

Gao et al. investigated a semi-blind demodulation method for short-time burst FM-MFSK signals under low signal-to-noise ratio conditions. An STFT-based semi-blind demodulation method for short-burst FM-MFSK is proposed. Their proposed method has a 90% probability of correct demodulation of FM-MFSK signals at signal-to-noise ratios greater than 3 dB.

All the papers in this special issue show that information, network, and communication security is steadily improving. Reliable security strategies can reduce the likelihood of economic losses caused by security problems and can further enhance social stability and national defense security. Information, network, and communication security will continue to be an important research direction for researchers in the coming years.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Peiying Zhang is currently an Associate Professor with the College of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Petroleum (East China). He received his Ph.D. in the School of Information and Communication Engineering at University of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2019. He has published multiple IEEE/ACM Trans./Journal/Magazine papers since 2016, such as IEEE TII, IEEE T-ITS, IEEE TVT, IEEE TNSE, IEEE TNSM, IEEE TETC, IEEE Network, IEEE IoT-J, ACM TALLIP, COMPUT COMMUN, IEEE COMMUN MAG, and etc. He served as the Technical Program Committee of IEEE ICC'23, IEEE ICC'22, DPPR 2021, ICIST2022, ISCIT 2016, ISCIT 2017, ISCIT 2018, ISCIT 2019, Globecom 2022, Globecom 2021, Globecom 2019, COMNETSAT 2020, ICICoS 2022, SoftIoT 2021, IWCMC-Satellite 2019, IWCMC-Satellite 2020, IWCMC-Satellite 2022, and INFOCOM Wireless-Sec 2023. He is the Leading Guest Editor of Drones, Mathematics, Electronics, Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, Mathematical Problems in Engineering, Frontiers in Psychiatry, and the editorial board of Drones, Mobile Information Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Applications (AIA). His research interests include semantic computing, future internet architecture, network virtualization, and artificial intelligence for networking.

Lei Liu received the B.Eng. degree in electronic information engineering from Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China, in 2010, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D degrees in communication and information systems from Xidian University, Xian, China, in 2013 and 2019, respectively. From 2013 to 2015, he was employed by a subsidiary of China Electronics Corporation. From 2018 to 2019, he was supported by China Scholarship Council to be a visiting Ph.D. student with the University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. He is currently an associate professor with the Guangzhou Institute of Technology, Xidian University. His research interests include wireless communication, vehicular ad hoc networks, mobile-edge computing, and Internet of Things. He has published more than 100 papers in the world leading journals and conferences, including IEEE JSAC, IEEE TON, IEEE TWC, IEEE TCOM, IEEE TPDS, IEEE TIFS, IEEE Globecom, IEEE ICC and so on, and is a recipient of 2018 IEEE SmartIoT Best Paper Award, 2018 WPMC Best Student Paper Award, 2020 IEEE Systems Journal Best Paper Award, and 2020 Vehicular Communications Best Paper Awards. He has been among the World's Top 2022 scientists.

Zhenqiang Wu received his B.S. degree in 1991 from Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China, and received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 2002, and 2007 respectively, all from Xidian University, China. He is currently a full professor of Shaanxi Normal University, China. His research interests include computer communications networks, mainly wireless networks, network security, anonymous communication, and privacy protection etc. He is a member of ACM and senior of CCF.

Muhammad Zakarya is currently an Assistant Professor with the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (FCIT), Sohar University, Sultanate of Oman. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Computer Science, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan (AWKUM), Pakistan. He received the PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of Surrey, Guildford, U.K. His research interests include cloud computing, mobile edge clouds, Internet of Things (IoT), performance, energy efficiency, algorithms, and resource management. His research has appeared in several international conferences, journals, and transactions of repute. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and member of the ACM. Dr. Zakarya is a TPC member of few prestigious international conferences including CCGrid, GECON, and UCC. He is also an Associate Editor of the IEEE Access Journal, Journal of Cloud Computing, Springer, and Journal of Cluster Computing, Springer. Dr. Zakarya has been listed in the world's top 2% scientists list for 2020, 2021.

Laith Abualigah is an Associate Professor at Prince Hussein Bin Abdullah College for Information Technology, Al Al-Bayt University, Jordan. He is also a distinguished researcher at the School of Computer Science, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia. He received his first degree from Al-Albayt University, Computer Information System, Jordan, in 2011. He earned a Master's degree from Al-Albayt University, Computer Science, Jordan, in 2014. He received a Ph.D. degree from the School of Computer Science at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia, in 2018. According to the report published by Clarivate, I'm one of the Highly Cited Researchers in 2021 and 2022 and the 1% influential Researchers, which depicts the 6,938 top scientists in the world. And I'm the first researcher in the domain of Computer Science in Jordan for 2021. According to the report published by Stanford University in 2020, Abualigah is one of the 2% influential scholars, which depicts the 100,000 top scientists in the world. Abualigah has published more than 250 journal papers and books, which collectively have been cited more than 11401 times (H-index = 51). His main research interests focus on Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm (AOA), Bio-inspired Computing, Nature-inspired Computing, Swarm Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Meta-heuristic Modeling, and Optimization Algorithms, Evolutionary Computations, Information Retrieval, Text clustering, Feature Selection, Combinatorial Problems, Optimization, Advanced Machine Learning, Big data, and Natural Language Processing. Abualigah currently serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Cluster Computing (Springer), the Journal of Soft Computing (Springer), and the Journal of Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (Elsevier).

Alireza Goli is currently an assistant professor at the University of Isfahan, Iran. He received his Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from Yazd University, Yazd, Iran, in 2019. He has published more than 60 papers in high-quality journals and conferences. He has been recognized as one of the top 2% Researcher/Scientist in 2021, identified by Elsevier BV, Stanford University. He is serving as a reviewer in journals such as Expert Systems with Applications, Journal of Supercomputing, IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy System, and Annals of Operations Research. He has been working as a Guest Editor in some reputable journals like Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Environment, and Development and Sustainability. He is working as a member of the editorial board of Mathematical Problems in Engineering and Journal of Applied Research in Industrial Engineering. His research interests include supply chain management, meta-heuristic algorithms, robust optimization, and artificial intelligence.

Godfrey Kibalya received a BSc. degree in Telecommunications Engineering in 2010 from Makerere University Uganda and a MSc. degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Trento, Italy, and a Ph.D. in Network Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Spain in 2022. He has previously worked as a researcher at the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain and a lecturer at multiple Universities. He is currently working as a Research and Innovation Senior Engineer at Nearby Computing S.L, Barcelona, Spain where he is involved in multiple EU and national projects. His research interests include Network function virtualization, Satellite Communication, and application of Artificial Intelligence and XAI in network and service management.