Connection Science

Security, safety, and reliability are the three most important attributes of the dependability of a software system. This is especially the case for mission-critical and life-threatening systems. While security prevents systems from being attacked via potential vulnerabilities, safety ensures systems do not end at any undesired state and cause unacceptable consequences. Reliability is the probability of failure-free system operation for a given period of time in a specified environment.

Traditional techniques and tool support are insufficient to overcome the challenges posed by the complexity of these systems, the dynamic nature of the environments in which they operate, and the drive for continuous deployment of new functionality. This special issue welcomes papers that discuss new techniques to overcome the shortcomings of existing approaches. It also encourages empirical studies and experience reports of how to improve the dependability of a software system in the real world.

Our objective is to present a collection of the current state-of-the-art research and the state-of-practice techniques within this scope described above.

This special issue includes extended papers recommended by DSA 2023 (The 10^th IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Their Applications in Tokyo, Japan) and QRS 2023 (The 23^rd IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security in Chiang Mai, Thailand). It also has an open call to the scientific community.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Reliability, Security, Availability, and Safety of Software Systems
• Software Testing, Verification, and Validation
• Program Debugging and Comprehension
• Information and Software Quality Assurance
• Resilience and Fault Tolerance
• Modeling, Prediction, Simulation, and Evaluation
• Metrics, Measurements, and Analysis
• Software Penetration and Protection
• Software Vulnerabilities
• Formal Methods
• Malware Detection and Analysis
• Intrusion Detection and Prevention
• Benchmark, Tools, Industrial Applications, and Empirical Studies

• When submitting your paper, answer “yes” to the question “Are you submitting your paper for a specific special issue?”
• Type “Software System Dependability: Techniques and Practices” in the free text box
• Papers with technical contributions will be mainly considered, but survey papers may be considered only if of sufficient merit and strict adherence to the theme of the special issue

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