Call for Papers

The discussion of 5^th Generation (5G) cellular networks started almost a decade ago soon after the release of 4G. This is beginning to come to a conclusion with the completion of 3GPP Release 15 in 2018 and also Release 16 in 2020. As the standardization of 5G communications move into the last phase, 5G technologies are rapidly being commercialized, with the first 5G networks being rolled out in 2019.

The pending conclusion of 5G has spurred interest in 6G in the research community. There has been an increasing number of beyond 5G and 6G related workshops and panels to get a consensus of the technologies that could make up 6G or the problems that 6G will solve.

As cellular technology becomes a pillar of the modern society, any invasion and disruption of it will cause turmoil and instability on different levels of society. This is especially true when cellular technology supports several critical infrastructures of a country, and disruptions can cause normal operation to come to a halt. As we move into a new chapter, new technologies and new scenarios will pose different challenges for security compared to the previous ones. Additionally, we have to understand the shortfall of current standards and technologies to avoid them in the future. Hence, we need to start early and identify the challenges and technologies, and importantly the security challenges they pose. 

In this Special Issue (SI), we seek to review current security technologies in 5G and identify the emerging technologies which will be suitable for beyond 5G and 6G. The papers in this special issue will focus on emerging technologies for security for beyond 5G and 6G. We solicit papers covering various topics of interest that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Review of 5G security (covering Rel. 15, 16, 17)
• Threats and attacks on 5G
• Best practices in implementing 5G
• Analysis and design of beyond 5G and 6G protocol security
• Security evaluation beyond 5G and 6G product integrity
• Threat modelling techniques for the evaluation of 6G systems
• Adversarial methods for proposed future 5G architectures
• Security orchestration across all components of a fully deployed 5G system
• State of security standardization and interoperability in beyond 5G standards
• Physical layer security in 6G
• Role of emerging technology, e.g. blockchain, in 6G
• Domain specific security requirements, smart grid, Industry 4.0, autonomous vehicle, in 6G

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the standard format as indicated in the Information for Authors section of the Paper Submission Guidelines.

All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through Manuscript Central. Select the “June 2021/Emerging Security Technologies for 6G” topic from the drop-down menu of Topic/Series titles.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 February 2021
First Review Due: 28 February 2021
Revision Sue: 30 March 2021
Acceptance Notification: 30 April 2021
Final Camera Ready Files Due: 15 May 2021
Publication Date: June 2021

Guest Editors

Woon Hau Chin
Toshiba Europe

Chau Yuen
Singapore University of Technology and Design

H. Vincent Poor
Princeton University

Mark Beach
University of Bristol