The prevention of intrusion in networks is decisive and an intrusion detection system is extremely desirable with potent intrusion detection mechanism. Excessive work is done on intrusion detection systems but still these are not powerful due to high number of false alarms. One of the leading causes of false alarms is due to the usage of a raw dataset that contains redundancy. To resolve this issue, feature selection is necessary which can improve intrusion detection performance. Latterly, principal component analysis (PCA) has been used for feature reduction and subset selection in which features are primarily projected into a principal space and then features are elected based on their eigenvalues, but the features with the highest eigenvalues may not have the guaranty to provide optimal sensitivity for the classifier. To avoid this problem, an optimization method is required. Evolutionary optimization approach like genetic algorithm (GA) has been used to search the most discriminative subset of transformed features. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) is another optimization approach based on the behavioral study of animals/birds. Therefore, in this paper a feature subset selection based on PSO is proposed which provides better performance as compared to GA.

In Industrial systems, Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, the pseudo-transport layer of the distributed network protocol (DNP3) performs the functions of the transport layer and network layer of the open systems interconnection (OSI) model. This study used a simulation design of water pumping system, in-which the network nodes are directly and wirelessly connected with sensors, and are monitored by the main controller, as part of the wireless SCADA system. This study also intends to focus on the security issues inherent in the pseudo-transport layer of the DNP3 protocol. During disassembly and reassembling processes, the pseudo-transport layer keeps track of the bytes sequence. However, no mechanism is available that can verify the message or maintain the integrity of the bytes in the bytes received/transmitted from/to the data link layer or in the send/respond from the main controller/sensors. To properly and sequentially keep track of the bytes, a mechanism is required that can perform verification while bytes are received/transmitted from/to the lower layer of the DNP3 protocol or the send/respond to/from field sensors. For security and byte verification purposes, a mechanism needs to be proposed for the pseudo-transport layer, by employing cryptography algorithm. A dynamic choice security buffer (SB) is designed and employed during the security development. To achieve the desired goals of the proposed study, a pseudo-transport layer stack model is designed using the DNP3 protocol open library and the security is deployed and tested, without changing the original design.

Intrusion detection using artificial neural networks is an ongoing area and thus interest in this field has increased among the researchers. Therefore, in this paper we present a system for tackling User to Root (U2R) attacks using generalized feedforward neural network. A backpropagation algorithm is used for training and testing purpose. The system uses sampled data from Kddcup99 dataset, an attack database that is a standard for evaluating the security detection mechanisms. The system is implemented in two phases such as training phase and testing phase. The developed system is applied to different U2R attacks to test its performance. Furthermore, the results indicate that this approach is more precise and accurate in case of false positive, false negative and detection rate.

This special issue aims to make people aware and up to date of the innovative research in the area of emerging techniques and methods in security of information and network. The majority of organizations in the commercial and government sectors are relying completely on their computer and network systems. Extensive attacks can cause heavy loss in a few seconds. Therefore, securing their computers, networks, and information is imperative. Based on the importance of security and interest of the researchers, this special issue is focused on attracting good work on innovative methods and techniques in order to address unique security issues which are introduced by new computing paradigms and techniques. This special issue presents the following papers in the most active areas of research in security of information and networks. The brief introduction of the selected papers is provided. O. Tayan et al. proposed the paper "A Hybrid Digital-Signature and Zero-Watermarking Approach for Authentication and Protection of Sensitive Electronic Documents. " This paper addresses the problems and threats associated with verification of integrity, proof-of-authenticity, tamperdetection, and copyright protection for digital-text content. The proposed algorithm was implemented and shown to be robust against undetected content modifications and is capable of confirming proof-of-originality whilst detecting and locating deliberate/nondeliberate tampering. Additionally, enhancements in resource-utilization and reduced redundancies were achieved in comparison to traditional encryption-based approaches.