Modern high-speed mobile networks enable users to access the Internet anywhere and anytime. The increasing communication qualities and the fast-paced expansion of these networks around the globe along with the advances in mobile devices drive the popularity of various mobile applications. While the combination of mobile networks and applications brings about great convenience to users, they also engender new vulnerabilities for attackers to exploit. Specifically, the threats can manifest in several respects. First, attackers can leverage the day-by-day increasing resources of mobile devices and networks for reinforcing their attacks. That is, due to the rapidly increasing population of mobile devices and the larger network bandwidth, it is much more efficient to launch large-scale attacks using compromised mobile devices as bots. Second, an assault can concentrate on mobile applications per se or come in the form of any ilk of malware, which usually results in the violation of end-user privacy. Among others, characteristic examples of such applications are location-based services and mobile payment ones. Violation of user’s privacy may even incur significant financial loss to either the end-user or the organization they work for. Lastly, attacks on mobile platforms may directly target the underlying operating system or indirectly exploit smartphone hardware components such as sensors, camera, storage, and battery. In view of the above, security and privacy issues are deemed essential for mobile applications and their platforms.

This special issue aspires to bring together contributions from researchers and practitioners working in the broad area of mobile and wireless networks security and privacy. We seek high-quality articles presenting state-of-the-art security protocols, algorithms, policies, frameworks, and solutions for mobile networks in general and for applications running on modern mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, etc.) in particular.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

- Security assessment and analysis in architecture, software stack, and protocols of the mobile platform
- Security analysis and forensics in mobile platforms
- Security architecture and protocol design of mobile platforms
- Log analysis and mining in mobile platforms
- Intrusion detection and prevention in mobile systems
- Privacy designs in mobile platforms
- Security assessment and analysis in mobile applications
- Privacy enhancement designs in mobile applications
- Malware behavior of mobile applications
- Lightweight cryptographic designs for mobile applications
- Identity authentication and management for mobile applications
- Defense and protection mechanisms for mobile applications
- Mobile and IoT botnets
- Biometric-based user authentication schemes for mobile devices

Authors can submit their manuscripts through the Manuscript Tracking System at https://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/scn/spmna/.

Submission Deadline: 01 December 2017
Publication Date: March 2018

Papers are published upon acceptance, regardless of the Special Issue publication date.

Lead Guest Editor
Ren-Hung Hwang, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan
Guest Editors
Po-Ching Lin, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan
Georgios Kambourakis, University of the Aegean, Samos, Greece
Georges Kaddoum, École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS), Montreal, Canada