As quantum computing technology continues to advance towards a cryptographically relevant scale, cybersecurity for critical infrastructure such as electrical power systems must prepare for an existential threat. A crucial step to mitigating the potential damage a quantum computer-aided attack may cause is identifying quantum-vulnerable algorithms that are currently used in the standards for the security of power system control centres and communication networks. The IEC 62351 is a series of standards for protecting data in power automation systems and includes several quantum-vulnerable cryptographic primitives. Parts 7, 8, and 9 of the IEC 62351 are dedicated to network and system management, role-based access control, and key management. In this work, we conduct a comprehensive vulnerability assessment of the cryptographic algorithms selected in these parts of IEC 62351.

The interest in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has motivated several initiatives around the world led by central banks. As the success of CBDCs depends on the public trust and use, it is crucial to understand the privacy concerns of users towards CBDCs as a significant determinant of their adoption and usage behavior. This paper introduces a novel datadriven approach utilizing user-generated content (UGC) from Reddit and aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) to assess dimensions of user privacy concerns and prioritize the specific issues contributing to overall privacy concerns regarding CBDCs. By integrating the concern for information privacy (CFIP) and the mobile users’ information privacy concerns (MUIPC) frameworks, this study highlights the key areas and concerns that need to be addressed to ensure a successful integration of CBDCs in the existing financial system. The findings reveal that perceived surveillance, perceived intrusion, concern of collection, improper access, unauthorized secondary use, and errors, all significantly contribute to the overall privacy concerns of users. The paper proposes a novel, objective approach to measure privacy concerns constructs using the content posted on social media and demonstrates its effectiveness to address typical limitations of survey-based studies, including small sample sizes and generalizability issues. Index Terms-Central bank digital currency (CBDC), Privacy concerns, Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA), Concern for information privacy (CFIP), Mobile users’ information privacy concerns (MUIPC).

Despite gaining consumer momentum and interest of Virtual Reality (VR) in the consumer marketplace, the literature has lagged in exploring the continuance usage behaviour and factors associated with the post-adoption. To build on this, the current research seeks to identify factors that support the continuance usage of current VR users. To examine this, we employ a mixed-method approach. In Study 1, we initially gathered a total of 3,205 actual purchasers (Amazon verified purchase) from the top 10 VR brands listed in Amazon.com, Through a nethnographic content analysis, the key determinants of post-adoption of VR devices emerged (i.e. perceived functional benefit, perceived discomfort, perceived focused immersion, temporal dissociation, perceived health risk, and task quality). In Study 2, hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling from 119 current VR users. The results demonstrate temporal dissociation and task quality were found to be the most significant antecedents affecting continuance usage. Theoretical and managerial implications are debated, as well as suggestions for future research.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly becoming widespread in different areas such as healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing. IoT networks comprise many diverse entities, including smart small devices for capturing sensitive information, which may be attainable targets for malicious parties. Thus security and privacy are of utmost importance. To protect the confidentiality of data handled by IoT devices, conventional cryptographic primitives have generally been used in various IoT security solutions. While these primitives provide just an acceptable level of security, they typically neither preserve privacy nor support advanced functionalities. Also, they overly count on trusted third parties because of some limitations by design. This multidisciplinary survey paper connects the dots and explains how some advanced cryptosystems can achieve ambitious goals. We begin by describing a multi-tiered heterogeneous IoT architecture that supports the cloud, edge, fog, and blockchain technologies and assumptions and capabilities for each layer. We then elucidate advanced encryption primitives, namely wildcarded, break-glass, proxy re-encryption, and registration-based encryption schemes, as well as IoT-friendly cryptographic accumulators. Our paper illustrates how they can augment the features mentioned above while simultaneously satisfying the architectural IoT requirements. We provide comparison tables and diverse IoT-based use cases for each advanced cryptosystem as well as a guideline for selecting the best one in different scenarios and depict how they can be integrated.

This paper discusses the problem of double-ending fraud in real estate transactions – a type of transactional fraud wherein agents handling real estate transactions unfairly benefit (e.g., by simultaneously representing both the buy and sell side of a real estate transaction in a manner that unfairly boosts the commission they receive, or colluding to increase their commission in a real estate transaction at the expense of the buyer and/or seller of the real property). The paper proposes a unique blockchain solution design that leverages blockchain's properties of transparency and ability to create tamper-resistant audit trails to reduce opportunities for double-ending fraud and increase real estate market participants' trust in the handling of their transactions. The paper discusses the implementation of a prototype of the solution based on hyperledger fabric and sails; it presents the results of an agent-based modelling simulation validating that the inherent transparency of the proposed design offers optimal allocation for both sellers and buyers.

We introduce the notion of forgery-resilience for digital signature schemes, a new paradigm exhibiting desirable legislative properties. It evolves around the idea that, for any message, there can only be a unique valid signature, and exponentially many acceptable signatures, all but one of them being spurious.

The problem of non-interactive message authentication using an insecure broadband channel and an authenticated narrow-band channel is considered. This problem has been considered in the context of ad hoc networks, where it is assumed that there is neither a secret key shared among the two parties nor a public-key infrastructure in place. A formal framework for protocols of this type is presented, along with a new protocol which is as efficient as the best previous protocols. The security of the proposed protocol is based on a new property of hash functions called ‘hybrid-collision resistance’.