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The information society depends increasingly on risk assessment and management systems as means to adequately protect its key information assets. The availability of these systems is now vital for the protection and evolution of companies. However, several factors have led to an increasing need for more accurate risk analysis approaches. These are: the speed at which technologies evolve, their global impact and the growing requirement for companies to collaborate. Risk analysis processes must consequently adapt to these new circumstances and new technological paradigms. The objective of this paper is, therefore, to present the results of an exhaustive analysis of the techniques and methods offered by the scientific community with the aim of identifying their main weaknesses and providing a new risk assessment and management process. This analysis was carried out using the systematic review protocol and found that these proposals do not fully meet these new needs. The paper also presents a summary of MARISMA, the risk analysis and management framework designed by our research group. The basis of our framework is the main existing risk standards and proposals, and it seeks to address the weaknesses found in these proposals. MARISMA is in a process of continuous improvement, as is being applied by customers in several European and American countries. It consists of a risk data management module, a methodology for its systematic application and a tool that automates the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are the next generation of engineered systems into which computing, communication, and control technologies are now being closely integrated. They play an increasingly important role in critical infrastructures, governments and everyday life. Security is crucial in CPS, but they were not, unfortunately, initially conceived as a secure environment, and if these security issues are to be incorporated, then security must be considered from the very beginning of the system design. One way in which to solve this problem is by having a global perspective, which can be achieved by employing a Reference Architecture (RA), since it is a high-level abstraction of a system that could be useful in the implementation of complex systems. It is widely accepted that adding elements in order to address many security factors (integrity, confidentiality, availability, etc.) and facilitate the definition of the security requirements of a Security Reference Architecture (SRA) is a good starting point when attempting to solve these kinds of cybersecurity problems and protect the system from the beginning of the development. An SRA makes it possible to define the key elements of a specific environment, thus allowing a better understanding of the inherent elements of the environments, while promoting the integration of security aspects and mechanisms. The present paper, therefore, presents the definition of an SRA for CPS by using UML models in an attempt to facilitate secure CPS implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society is increasingly dependent on Information Security Management Systems (ISMS), and having these kind of systems has become vital for the development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). However, these companies require ISMS that have been adapted to their special features and have been optimized as regards the resources needed to deploy and maintain them, with very low costs and short implementation periods. This paper discusses the different cycles carried out using the 'Action Research (AR)' method, which have allowed the development of a security management methodology for SMEs that is able to automate processes and reduce the implementation time of the ISMS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In recent years, most organizations have suffered attacks against their information systems. For this reason, organizations should seek support from enterprise security architectures (ESAs) in order to secure their information assets. Security patterns can help when building complex ESAs, but they have some limitations that reduce their usability. In this paper, we define the metapattern of a new type of security pattern called Enterprise Security Pattern. This new metapattern provides a model-driven environment and combines all elements that must be considered when designing and building ESAs. We present here a precise meta-model and four diagrams to describe the metapattern of the enterprise security patterns. When avoiding a security problem, organizations could use enterprise security patterns to provide their designers with an optimal and proven security guideline and so standardize the design and building of the ESA for that problem. Enterprise security patterns could also facilitate the selection and tailoring of security policies, patterns, mechanisms, and technologies when a designer is building ESAs. To illustrate our ideas, we present an instance of this new type of pattern, showing how it can be used. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud computing is a new paradigm that combines several computing concepts and technologies of the Internet creating a platform for more agile and cost-effective business applications and IT infrastructure. The adoption of Cloud computing has been increasing for some time and the maturity of the market is steadily growing. Security is the question most consistently raised as consumers look to move their data and applications to the cloud. We justify the importance and motivation of security in the migration of legacy systems and we carry out an analysis of different approaches related to security in migration processes to cloud with the aim of finding the needs, concerns, requirements, aspects, opportunities and benefits of security in the migration process of legacy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is that of linking security requirements for web services with security patterns, both at the architectural and the design level, obtaining in a systematic way a web services security software architecture that contains a set of security patterns, thus ensuring that the security requirements of the internet-based application that have been elicited are fulfilled. Additionally, the security patterns are linked with the most appropriate standards for their implementation. Design/methodology/approach — To develop secure WS-based applications, one must know the main security requirements specified that applications have to fulfil and find appropriate security patterns that assure, through combination or relationships between them, the fulfilment of the implicated security requirements. That is why a possible link or connection between requirements and patterns will have to be found, attempting to select for a determined security requirement the best security patterns that solve this requirement, thus guaranteeing the security properties for internet-based applications. Findings — Using security patterns, that drive and guide one towards a secure development as well as towards security software architecture, one can be sure that this design based on these patterns fulfils and guarantees the most important security requirements of the internet-based applications through the design and implementation of security solutions that provide reliable security services. Practical implications — Security architecture for internet-based applications and web services can be designed considering the security requirement types that it must fulfil and using the most appropriate security patterns. Originality/value — This paper proposes a relationship between security requirements that can be specified for internet-based applications and the possible security patterns that can be used in the design and implementation of the secure system based on the internet, guaranteeing that these security requirements are fulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including security engineering, security models and security in cloud computing.