USM, 10 December — Upon its highly auspicious inauguration in 2019, the Second International Conference on Advances in Cybersecurity (ACeS 2020) was successfully convened on 8^th to 9^th December 2020 with 46 papers presented after undergoing a rigorous peer-review and selection process. The conference was organized by the National Advanced IPv6 Centre (NAv6), Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Despite the catastrophic COVID-19 global pandemic, the entirely-online ACeS 2020 continued to attract best-in-class presenters and participants from around the world. It received a total of 132 high-quality submissions from 12 countries. ACeS 2020 main and plenary sessions inspire lavish exchanges among researchers, practitioners, and academics to present and discuss ongoing work in newly emerging spheres in cybersecurity, especially cloud and edge computing, Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, and blockchains.

The conference timing could not have arrived at a more opportune moment. The entire world has been waiting for the research community to decipher solutions to the unprecedented challenges on the heels of the unrelenting COVID-19 pandemic. With the door of opportunity opens wide to cyber-criminals to orchestrate cyber crimes with increasing sophistication, COVID-19 fears are deceptively exploited by ill-intentioned attackers to impersonate brands or institutions to mislead public. Hence the tsunami outbreak of phishing, spam, and ransomware attacks, among others, gripping unsuspecting victims with nerve-racking uptrend since the onset of the pandemic. To this end, ACeS 2020 platform is positioned to confer a conducive forum for researchers, engineers, scientists, and specialists in a variety of fields in cybersecurity and related domains to examine relevant issues affecting security, privacy, and the safety of the digital continuum, and offer practical solutions.

All accepted papers will be published in the Springer’s Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) series. This prestigious CCIS series is dedicated to computer science-related conference proceedings publications. In this regard, an internationally-represented review committee managed a strict peer-review and paper selection process in regularly-scheduled global meetings. In addition, conferences managed by societies or those with very high regional or national significance are also considered for publication. CCIS is abstracted/indexed in DBLP, Google Scholar, EI-Compendex, Mathematical Reviews, SCImago and Scopus, as well as submitted for inclusion in ISI Proceedings.

A token of gratitude is extended to all reviewers for their utmost dedication, extraordinary efforts and time spent participating in multiple papers evaluation and reviews to ensure only exceptionally quality papers are accepted for this conference.

ACeS 2020 general chair, Dr Mohammed Anbar, in his opening remark, summarizes the contribution of many in making ACeS 2020 a success, followed by a sincere gratitude.

“The conference would not have been possible without the enthusiastic and hard work of many individuals. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to the organizing, technical program committee, and reviewers for their contributions and commitments. I also would like to thank all the authors who submitted papers and the attendees."

The organizers hope that ACeS 2020 would be a memorable experience, stimulating, productive and fruitful event for everybody involved and a source of inspiration for future research.

Article contributed by Dr Lokman Mohd Fadzil.