Collection

Special Issue on Security in Next-Generation Communication Networks

Submission status
Closed

Network attacks show a trend of increased intensity, enhanced diversity, and more concealed attack methods, which put forward higher requirements for the performance of network security management strategies. One characteristic of conventional network management is the lack of global visibility of the network state, which hinders the deployment and maintenance of coherent network-wide policies. This complexity in integration makes it worse for maintaining stable and robust network security; changing or updating security policies in these systems in the wake of changes in traffic behavior or intrusions is very difficult to manage and implies high costs.

Software-defined networking (SDN) is an overarching new networking paradigm that can be instantiated with controller-centered approaches (e.g., OpenFlow), programmable data planes (e.g., P4, NPL, programmable ASICs, etc.), and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). These next-generation network management technologies are changing how networks are planned, configured, deployed, and managed. They exhibit a rapid evolution that has turned them into key enablers for future implementations in heterogeneous network scenarios, such as 5G and 6G, data centers, ISPs, corporate, academic, and home networks. One of the main advantages of SDN is the logical centralization of the network control plane and the introduction of programmability, which enables security automation and runtime deployment of security procedures and policies.

A twofold research context has been identified: on the one hand, the creation of security countermeasures strategies that leverage the advantages of next-generation technologies. On the other hand, the same next generation features that can be used to provide quick and efficient security countermeasures can also be a target for attackers. Therefore, one must pursue a secure architecture design when these next-generation networking management technologies (e.g., SDN and NFV) are enabled.

This Special Issue encourages researchers and experts to submit their recent advances in both contexts: 1) leveraging next-gen technologies to improve network security and 2) providing solutions to intrinsic security faults and risks in next-generation network management technologies. Topics of interest for this Special Issue include but are not limited to:

--Security, reliability, and privacy through next-generation communication networks

--Management and orchestration of next-generation technologies elements for security

--Secure design of SDN/NFV solutions, security enablers

--Security threats and vulnerabilities introduced by next-generation communication networks

--Threat detection and mitigation through SDN/NFV

--Security policy specification and management in next-generation communication networks

--Security-related monitoring and analytics in SDN and NFV

--Authentication, authorization, and accounting in communication networks

--Secure SDN/NFV with Blockchain

--Security of applying next-generation technologies to IoT, cloud computing, wireless and mobile networks

--Risk and compliance issues in next-generation communication networks

--Securing networks through data-plane programmability

--Collaboration between programmable data and control planes to increase security

--Securing next-generation management infrastructures

--Security architecture for next-generation communication networks

--Security standards of next-generation technologies

--Security of routing in SDN

--Security of network slicing

--Security as a service for SDN

--Next-generation communication network security using artificial intelligence

Guest Editors

Juan Felipe Botero, University of Antioquia, Colombia – email: juanf.botero@udea.edu.co

Luis Alejandro Fletscher, University of Antioquia, Colombia – email: luis.fletscher@udea.edu.co

Nur Zincir-Heywood, Dalhousie University, Canada – email: zincir@cs.dal.ca

Abdelkader Lahmadi, Université de Lorraine, Loria, Inria, France – email: abdelkader.lahmadi@loria.fr

Adrian Lara, University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica – email: adrian.lara@ucr.ac.cr

Carol Fung, Concordia University, Canada – email: carol.fung@concordia.ca

Miguel Camelo, University of Antwerpen, Belgium – email: Miguel.Camelo@uantwerpen.be

Open Submission Schedule

We use an “open” submission schedule, which means that you can submit your paper at any time before we close the call (see below) and that we will start the review process right after receiving the submission.

Call closes: June 30th, 2022

Revision notification: 2 months after submission

Revised paper due: 1.5 months after the revision notification

Final notification: 1.5 months after the revision notification

Expected publication of the special issue: first quarter of 2022 (early accepted papers will be accessible online before the deadline)

Submission Format and Review Guidelines

The submitted manuscripts must be written in English and describe original research neither published nor currently under review by other journals or conferences. Parallel submissions will not be accepted. All papers will undergo a similarity check using iThenticate, and the work similarity should be below 20%. All submitted papers, if relevant to the theme and objectives of the special issue, will go through an external peer-review process. Submissions should (i) conform strictly to the Instructions for Authors available on the JNSM website and (ii) be submitted through the Snapp system available at https://www.springer.com/journal/10922.

Articles (14 in this collection)