Cooperation with Tel-Aviv University
Yaniv Harel, Irad Ben Gal and Yuval Elovici
ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST) – Special Issue: Cyber Security and Regular Papers archive Volume 8 Issue 4, July 2017 Article No. 49
We are living in a unique period of history, and the current technology revolution willbe among the most dramatic societal transformations remembered by humanity. Theimportant changes associated with the invention of the engine, electricity, and theprinting press gradually transformed society in the western world over a period of overa hundred years. The changes accompanying the current revolution have significantlyaltered the lives of average citizens across the globe in less than a generation. This isunprecedented.In the past, revolutions spanned decades, enabling the establishment of processesand systems. For example, a language that supports the new revolution evolves, andleaders emerge, with the fresh perspective required by the revolutionary changes. Newdisciplines are created and new occupations are developed to support the changes. Thepresent revolution is taking place at such a high speed that such enabling processesand systems have not yet been established, let alone developed or matured, and theywill continue to be created well into the future.Over the past three decades, an important new vector of the technology revolutionhas emerged: the cyber domain. In particular, the technological aspects of cyber—such as computer technologies, access to information and systems, greater connectivityamong subsystems, and the combined effect of all these aspects on a growing list of diversespheres—expose the world to unprecedented risks. Academia and the intellectual infrastructure associated with the cyber domain are struggling to keep up with the domain’srapid pace.Cryptography is a mature discipline, with strong connections to mathematics andcomputer science, which have helped the discipline evolve and develop over the years.Traditionally, it has been the cyber area most rooted in the academic world. However,many other technological subjects should also be part of the cyber academic discussion.Each month, as the cyber effect expands, new aspects of this arena become part of thecyber theoretical discipline. For example, the autonomous car came on the scene inrecent years [Coppola and Morisio 2016], and it did not take long before a cyber threatassociated with the autonomous car was identified. The immaturity of the disciplineis reflected by the fact that cyber is currently being discussed on many stages andstudied by researchers from diverse disciplines and perspectives. The issue of whethercyber is a pure discipline or a topic that relates to several disciplines will continueto be discussed in the coming years. The following special issue includes a collectionof selected papers that cover the diverse cyber domain and how it interfaces withintelligent systems. The topics were presented at the Tel Aviv Academic Conferenceover two successive years. The scope of this special issue is relatively broad, yet thereare many cyber issues that have not been addressed in this edition.