CALL FOR PAPERS

International Journal of Information Security
Springer

Special Issue on “SCADA and Control System Security”

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and industrial control systems monitor and control a wide range of industrial and infrastructure processes such as manufacturing production lines, water treatment, fuel production and electricity distribution. Such systems are usually built using a variety of commodity computer and networking components, and are becoming increasingly interconnected with corporate and other Internet-visible networks. As a result, they face significant threats from internal and external actors. For example, the now famous Stuxnet (which is a Windows-specific computer worm containing a rootkit and four zero-day attacks) was specifically written to attack SCADA systems that alone caused multi-million dollars damages in 2010.

The critical requirement for high availability in SCADA and industrial control systems, along with the use of bespoke, resource constrained computing devices, legacy operating systems and proprietary software applications limits the applicability of traditional information security solutions. Thus, research focusing on devising security solutions that are applicable in the control systems context is imperative, as evidenced by the increased focus on the problem by governments worldwide.

This Special Issue aims to present the latest developments, trends and research solutions addressing security of the computers and networks used in SCADA and other industrial control systems. The topics of interest include but not limited to, intrusion detection and prevention, malware, vulnerability analysis of control systems protocols, digital forensics, application security and performance impact of security methods and tools in control systems. This list is not exhaustive and other relevant topics will be considered.

We solicit previously unpublished, original research papers as well as review articles (presenting state-of-the art research and creating clear understanding of a particular topic). Conference papers with significant improvement will also be considered, provided that authors have clearly identified the improvements in the paper and also highlight the changes to their previous paper.

Submission Guidelines:
Only high quality original work that has not been published or is not currently under review elsewhere will be considered.

Instructions for submission can be found http://www.springer.com/computer/security+and+cryptology/journal/10207. The submitted papers should be formatted according to the journal style and submitted via the journal web-based submission route at https://www.editorialmanager.com/ijis/

Each paper must be accompanied by a cover letter indicating that the submission is for the “Special Issue on SCADA and Control System Security”.

All papers will be reviewed on originality, quality and relevance to the journal and handled according to the normal standards of the journal.

Important Dates:
Submission Deadline: 21 August 2011
Acceptance notification: 30 December 2011
Final papers due: 20 February 2012
Publication: 2012 (tentative)

Guest Editorial Board:
Dr. Irfan Ahmed, Information Security Institute, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

Dr. Martin Naedele, ABB Corporate Research, Switzerland.

Adj/Prof. Charles Palmer, Dartmouth College, USA & Director IBM's Institute for Advanced Security

Prof. Ryoichi Sasaki, Tokyo Denki University, Japan

Adj/A. Prof. Bradley Schatz, Queensland University of Technology, & Director Schatz Forensic, Australia.

Andrew West, Invensys Operations Management, Australia