Guest editorial: Special section on security in distributed computing systems
Wei Zhao · IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems · 2003
ESEARCH in the area of security of computing systems has always been of utmost importance, particularly in recent years as orchestrated attacks have sought to cripple critical infrastructures. Security issues in distributed computing systems involve reducing vulnerabilities as well as giving system management the insight and control needed to defend distributed information systems. All aspects of business and government operations and services are dependent upon the security and integrity of our information and communication infrastructures. Critical sectors such as energy, health, transportation, social and emergency services, manufacturing, processing, and logistics and distribution functions rely almost entirely on data processing and interchange. The recent attacks on government and commercial computers indicate that “hacking” has gone beyond the realm of domestic pranks and has entered the domain of state sponsored cyber-terrorism. Clearly, these information security threats to vital national infrastructures present risks of debilitating impact on the defense and economic security of the nation and the state. As such, these issues pose new challenges to researchers. Advances are rapidly being made in the following areas: anonymity and camouflaging, intrusion detection, dynamic coalition, distributed denial of service, security protocols, authentication and verification, and mobile code and agent security. This special section of IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems is targeted at related issues in security of distributed computing systems. Response to the call for papers was overwhelming. From these excellent submissions, seven were accepted for publication in this special section. The first paper by M. Ahamad, S. Lakshmanan, and H. Venkateswaran explores the subject of responsive security for stored data. X. Zhang, L. Xiao, and Z. Xu discuss low-cost and reliable mutual anonymity protocols in peer-to-peer networks. Integrated access control and intrusion detection for Web servers is explained by T. Ryutov, C. Neuman, D. Kim, and L. Zhou. The paper by L. Wang, X. Zhao, D. Pei, R. Bush, D. Massey, and L. Zhang explores ways to protect BGP routes to top-level DNS servers. J. Xu and M. Sung introduce a technique for defending against internet DDoS attacks. The next paper, by H. Wang and K. Shin, describes a built-in protection mechanism to counter DDoS attacks, known as TransportAware IP Routers. The final paper from A. Mei, L. Mancini, and S. Jajodia discusses a secure dynamic fragment and replica allocation in large-scale distributed file systems. Finally, I would like to take this time to thank the contributing authors, reviewers, and the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Pen-Chung Yew. Additional thanks goes to Mr. Shengquan Wang for Web management and Ms. Larisa Archer for administration of the review process. Without their contributions and support, this special section would not be possible.