Emerging Topics on Cyber-Physical Energy Systems Security

Dear Colleagues,

Motivated by concerns about safety, efficiency, performance, stability, robustness, and sustainability, several sectors, including energy, autonomous automobile systems, healthcare, avionics, and transportation, have witnessed notable advances in automation, monitoring, and control over the past few years. As a result, the integration of communication, information, and computation with physically engineered systems demands a thorough analysis of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) so as to realize targeted technological and economic metrics. The electric power grid is a complex CPS that forms the backbone of critical infrastructure and the lifeline of modern societies. As a result, the concept of Cyber-Physical Energy Systems (CPES) is an emerging concept bringing topics from the field of CPS and smart grid applications into the energy sector processes so as to improve the reliability, security, and efficiency of the electric grid.

The recent advents in attack modeling, threat assessment, machine learning, information theory, cryptography, and computing create a new paradigm for the security of CPES. Moreover, recent real-world attack incidents in critical CPES infrastructures underscore the huge importance of the study of CPES security. To preserve the availability and integrity of CPES, defense mechanisms related to prevention, resiliency, and detection need to be evolved, and more attention is needed from experts in industry and academia to fill the gap.

The main goal of this Special Issue is to bring together scholars, researchers, scientists, engineers, and administrators on a common platform to develop, design, and publish new ideas and concepts to improve the field security of CPES. The relevant topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Attack and threat modeling and assessment approaches;
• Machine learning and big data for attack and defense strategies;
• Sensing and control for security protecting and trust management;
• Supervisory and data acquisition systems (SCADA) and industrial control system (ICS) security;
• Secure and trustworthy CPES;
• Critical CPES infrastructure security and real-time assessment;
• Intrusion detection and prevention methods;
• Hybrid CPES security and concurrency;
• Legacy CPES protection;
• Embedded systems security in CPES.

Assist. Prof. Charalambos Konstantinou
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Paras Mandal
Guest Editors

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