The Security Operations Center (SOC): Architectural Challenges and Sensing Futures

Dear Colleagues,

The security operations center (SOC) is a critical component of any organization’s cybersecurity posture. It is responsible for sensing, monitoring, detecting, and responding to security incidents in real-time. The SOC is made up of various components, including sensors, people, processes, and technologies that work together to protect an organization’s sensitive data and assets. However, the SOC is not without its challenges, and these challenges are becoming more complex as cyber threats become more sophisticated. This Special Issue will explore the architectural challenges facing the SOC, as well as the sensing futures that are emerging to address them.

This Special Issue aims to provide a platform for researchers, practitioners, and experts to share their insights and experiences on the SOC’s architectural challenges and sensing futures. The topics that will be covered in this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

• SOC sensor development and innovation;
• SOC sensing network architectures and design principles;
• Sensing automation and orchestration in the SOC;
• Threat intelligence and information sharing in the SOC;
• SOC sensing network operation and management;
• SOC performance evaluation and optimization;
• Machine learning and artificial intelligence in the SOC;
• Emerging technologies for SOC sensing, such as blockchain, IoT, and cloud computing;
• SOC use cases and case studies. 

We invite original research articles, review papers, and case studies related to the SOC’s architectural challenges and sensing futures. All submissions will be peer-reviewed, and the accepted papers will be published in the Special Issue. Submissions should follow the journal’s guidelines and format. All submissions should be made online through the journal’s submission system.

The SOC’s architectural challenges and sensing futures are critical topics that require attention from the research and practitioner communities. This Special Issue will provide an excellent opportunity for researchers and practitioners to share their insights and experiences on these topics and to promote further research in this area. We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Prof. Dr. Paul Watters
Dr. MingJian Tang
Dr. Al-Hawawreh Muna
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• threat sensing
• threat hunting
• threat intelligence
• endpoint sensing, detection and response
• anomaly detection and heuristics
• forensics
• incident response
• event correlation and flow sensing