About IEEE Security & Privacy

IEEE Security & Privacy (S&P)’s mission is to be the best source of reliable, useful, peer-reviewed information for those aiming to understand how systems, data, and people are protected in a world of rapid technology evolution. This bimonthly magazine publishes articles that have clarity and context, targeting a wide audience who understand technology, from developers to executives, managers to policy-makers, and researchers interested in problems with practical impact. Peer-reviewed articles and columns by real-world experts illuminate all aspects of the field, including systems, attacks and defenses, software security, applied cryptography, usability, forensics, big data, ethics, biometrics, and more, with special issues focusing on targeted topics as well as issues devoted to key events and conferences.

S&P is copublished by the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Reliability Society. Technical cosponsors are the IEEE Signal Processing Society and IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society. S&P accepts commercial and classified advertisements. S&P‘s 2024 impact factor is 3.0. Learn about the magazine’s history by exploring the S&P index site, curated by a volunteer.

S&P aims to provide a unique combination of research articles, case studies, tutorials, and departments covering diverse aspects of security and dependability of computer-based systems, including legal and ethical issues, privacy concerns, tools to help secure information, methods for development and assessment of trustworthy systems, analysis of vulnerabilities and attacks, trends and new developments, pedagogical and curricular issues in educating the next generation of security professionals, secure operating systems and applications, security issues in wireless networks, design and test strategies for secure and survivable systems, and cryptology, and other topics of interest to a general, technically oriented readership. Topics include, but are not limited to:

Network Security
Software and Hardware Security
Systems Security
Embedded Security
Privacy-Enhancing Technologies
Data Analytics for Security and Privacy
Usable Security and Privacy
Physical and Human Security
Wireless and Mobile Security
Security Foundations
Security Economics
Security and Privacy Policies
Integrated Security Design Methods
Critical Infrastructures
Sociotechnical Security and Privacy
Social Networks and Computing
Surveillance
Cybercrime and Forensics
Developer and User Training
Real-World Cryptography
Intrusion Detection
Malware

Scope

IEEE Security & Privacy is the premier magazine of the IEEE Computer and Reliability Societies for informing their members about recent and forthcoming advances in information technology pertaining to security, privacy, and dependability. The magazine seeks creative and novel perspectives on industry practices, research directions, and policy and regulatory matters. In addition to feature articles, special and themed issues, columns, and departments, experts from our community of interest provide insightful commentary on current issues and paradigm shifts via virtual roundtables and podcasts.

In particular, IEEE Security & Privacy looks for articles that identify key research problems for improving computing defenses and for developing more secure and privacy-aware systems, as well as articles that teach readers about emerging technologies that show promise in such areas. IEEE Security & Privacy encompasses a broad range of topics regarding security and privacy and features both peer-reviewed articles as well as departments and columns, which describe perspectives on hot topics from academic and industry leaders in the field.

Special Issue on Autonomous AI Agents in Computer Security
Día de Entrega: 2026-05-01

AI is having a transformative impact on cyber security that has the potential to significantly disrupt the effectiveness of current defensive standards. AI is up-scaling the offensive security tactics of novice and sophisticated attackers, at speed, scale, and potentially unseen methods targeting AI systems and supply chains. At the same time, autonomous AI agents offer the potential to counter these threats by enhancing the automatization of their detection, analysis, and recovery. However, the rapid pace of AI transformation and the resulting security arms race is creating significant uncertainty about what threats to expect and how to fortify defenses effectively.

This uncertainty is further amplified by the growing integration of autonomous agents across vertical and horizontal levels of global society, ranging from personal assistance to global commerce. Because of the potential capacity of these agents to interact with many parts of the economy, and to directly or indirectly touch critical systems, it will be essential to prioritize and integrate automated security at the outset as well. This necessitates a comprehensive analysis of both the vulnerabilities introduced through AI agents as well as their robustness and defensive capabilities.

As a result of these implications, we propose to explore the challenges, opportunities, and limitations arising from autonomous AI agents in computer security. The theme will focus on autonomous offensive and defensive security. The goal of the special issue is to uncover research directions to accelerate vulnerability discovery, attack detection, and incident response with automated, repeatable, and measurable approaches.

We’ll invite papers covering any aspect of AI agents for cyber security including, but not limited to,

AI agents for autonomous cyber defense
AI agents for autonomous vulnerability discovery and analysis
AI agents for autonomous incident recovery and response
Measurements quantifying the security of AI agents
Capabilities and limitations of AI agents in security contexts
Security analysis and vulnerability assessment of AI agents
Implications of AI agents for attack-defender asymmetries

Special Issue on Inclusive Security and Privacy Engineering
Día de Entrega: 2026-08-17

This special issue will explore methodological & engineering advances in inclusive security and privacy engineering. Security & privacy provisioning exercises should not only recognize the heterogeneity of individual needs but also reflect them into how systems are conceived, designed and engineered. This is key to security mechanism provisioning exercises particularly for marginalized and disadvantaged groups. Complementing on prior research to bring users at the center of systems design, we focus on methodological considerations to achieve security and privacy for all and not just few. To that end, we solicit research articles, case studies, on the following (but not restricted to) topics.

Methodological advances to capture the security & privacy needs of disadvantaged groups at the intersection of their diverse beings.
Process interventions for inclusive security & privacy engineering in the software development lifecycle.
Novel developer tools for inclusive security & privacy engineering. • AI powered assistants for inclusive security & privacy engineering.
De-colonizing inclusive security and privacy engineering.
PETs for global south.
Accessible PETs for diverse ability individuals.
Study of platform accessibility interventions with respect to security & privacy of their users.
Economics of inclusive security & privacy engineering.
Tech policy interventions for inclusive security and privacy engineering. • Socio technical aspects of methodological interventions to support inclusive security engineering.
Theoretical and empirical contributions to measure security & privacy poverty