Special issue of Information & Security: An International Journal (I&S)

Guest Editors: Predrag TASEVSKI, Research Centre for Security Defence and Peace - Republic of Macedonia, and Vesselin Petkov, Procon Ltd.

•Submission deadline for full text papers: 30 October 2015
•Anticipated publication: 20 December 2015 (with a cover date of 2016; accepted papers appear on the journal website asap)

The increased use of information and communication technologies in the Balkans has had a deep impact on the modus operandi of governments and businesses, and on the life of the average citizen. At the same time, threats to and in cyber space as well as the threats enabled by cyber space have become more acute. However, the countries in the region seem to lag behind their EU and NATO partners in the area of cybersecurity. Despite that there are good examples of catching up in terms of policy formulation and organisational reforms, there are still outstanding issues related to nurturing an environment that is conducive to moving forward on the issue of cybersecurity.

Awareness is one such issue, as today, the human factor, including its socio-technical aspects, can be either the strongest or the weakest link in any information security system. Thus we need to ensure that not only the expert community, involving representatives of the government, and of the public and private sector, but also the end-users receive adequate training and awareness

Although the bulk of papers comes from participants in the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW: 984799) held between 17-19 of March 2015 in Skopje, titled: “Encouraging cyber defence awareness in the Balkans” and is already available, this is an opportunity for other scholars and experienced practitioners to share their findings on cyber defence, cybersecurity, awareness-raising, cybersecurity culture, situational awareness, hybrid war, information campaigns, cyber espionage, and so forth.

We invite contributions on:

•Cyber defence approaches coupled with cybersecurity culture
•IT and cybersecurity awareness in the Balkans and elsewhere, situational awareness, education, training, awareness-raising
•New threats of hybrid wars, information campaigns and cyber-espionage.

This issue will also cover combination of these themes, such as:

•National cybersecurity strategies and resilience
•CERT and CIRT team establishment
•Models of incident/risk management
•Challenges related to the human factor, and regional analysis, international approach to IT and cybersecurity
•Country-specific cases of, e.g. awareness campaigns, situational awareness, awareness-raising, education, training, etc.

Interested authors may submit their papers to the I&S Managing Editor, infosec@procon.bg, in electronic form, following these instructions. For inquiries, proposals and submissions of book reviews, description of Web sites and related initiatives please addressed the I&S Managing Editor.

Important note: It is understood that submitted articles have not been published and are not currently under review for publication elsewhere. Authors must transfer copyright in writing to the publisher when an article is accepted for publication. Please check also the publisher’s copyright policy.