IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC) publishes archival research results focusing on research into foundations, methodologies, and mechanisms that support the achievement–through design, modeling, and evaluation–of systems and networks that are dependable and secure to the desired degree without compromising performance. The focus also includes measurement, modeling, and simulation techniques, and foundations for jointly evaluating, verifying, and designing for performance, security, and dependability constraints.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

I. Design for Dependability and Security

    Architectures
        Fault-tolerant, secure, and safe middleware
        Intrusion detection and tolerance
        Firewall technologies; authentication and authorization of users, systems, and applications
        Network technologies, including protocols, routers, and switches
        On-line detection and recovery
    System Management and Administration
    Cryptography
        Application of cryptography techniques
        Key management
        Cryptographic protocols and algorithms, and their security
    Use of COTS components

II. Evaluation

    Modeling and Prediction
        Threat-assessment and intrusion-detection models
        Availability, performability, and survivability
        Intrusion tolerance; attack models
        Modeling methods, including Markov chains, queuing/fluid flow, Stochastic Petri Nets (SPN), SAN models
    Experimental Methods
        Monitoring and measurement
        Workload characterization
        Benchmarking
        Test-bed design, including fault, error, attack, and workload generation
        Field monitoring and measurement, including failures, security violations and break-ins, and intrusion detection
        Statistical methods
    Formal Specification and Verification
    Quality of Service (encompassing performability, security, and safety)

III. Application-Specific Areas

    Survivable Database Design and Transaction Processing
    Electronic Commerce
    Embedded Systems
    File and File System Security
    Distributed and Pervasive Systems
    Smartcards and Biometrics
    Real-Time Systems
    Safety-Critical Systems (e.g., aerospace computing)
    Internet Applications
    Multimedia Applications and Signal-Processing

IV. Software Design

    Operating System Support (for error/intrusion detection and/or tolerance)
    Self-Checking Software Systems
    Dependable, Secure Protocols and Network Interfaces
    Software Testing, Validation, and Verification
    Software Aging and Rejuvenation
    Software Security and Reliability Engineering

V. New Technologies (problems and opportunities)

    Nanoscale Computing
    Ad Hoc Networks
    Pervasive and Embedded Computing
    Networks of Satellites
    Data Mining
    Wearable Computers and Associated Networks
    Quantum Computing
    Cyber-Physical Systems (e.g., mobile health, Smart Grid, and ITS)

Additional Information

As noted in the Jan-Mar. 2009 editorial, please note the following additional clarification of our scope: “Our Editorial Board decided that papers of purely theoretical interest in the area of cryptography without a clear and manifest application to a specific problem of dependability or security would fall out of the purview of these Transactions; similarly, papers addressing generic systems-management problems, as opposed to specific dependability and security challenges, as well those solving device-level, as opposed to system-level, dependability and security concerns, would also be out of our publication’s scope.”

TDSC welcomes proposals for topic-oriented special issues. Guidelines are provided here.

In addition to policies specified at Instructions for Peer Review, TDSC specifically has the following policies: (1) Papers which require a major revision will not receive a second major revision recommendation. In such situations the paper will be rejected. Authors should not assume that a major revision will lead to eventual acceptance. (2) The scope of topics was clarified in the editorial of the Jan-Mar 2009 issue as follows. “Our Editorial Board decided that papers of purely theoretical interest in the area of cryptography without a clear and manifest application to a specific problem of dependability or security would fall out of the purview of these Transactions; similarly, papers addressing generic systems-management problems, as opposed to specific dependability and security challenges, as well those solving device-level, as opposed to system-level, dependability and security concerns, would also be out of our publication’s scope.” (3) TDSC requires meaningful technical novelty in submissions that extend previously published conference papers. Extension beyond the conference version(s) is not simply a matter of length. Thus, expanded motivation, expanded discussion of related work, variants of previously reported algorithms, incremental additional experiments/simulations, proofs of results/theorems, may provide additional length but will fall below the line for proceeding with review.