Guest editorial special issues on security trends in mobile cloud computing, web, and social networking

Internet security has become an independent branch of computer security dealing with the Internet, and often involves applications or operating systems as a whole besides browser security. The sole objective is to establish rules that can be used against potential attacks [1]. Moreover, cyber security is an essential need for modern society where information technology and services pervade every aspect of our lives. However, it is challenging to achieve, as technology is changing at rapid speed and our systems turn into ever more complex. We are gradually more dependent upon such information and communications infrastructures, and the threats we face are organized and exploit our dependency by the attackers or cyber criminals. Moreover, cyber space is considered as the fifth battlefield after land, air, water, and space [2]. Mobile cloud computing, web and social networking have gained more and more attention in recent years. There are still significant security challenges in the development of cloud infrastructure, web, and mobile terminal devices. This special issue addresses various security issues in social networking, web, and cloud computing, particularly on advances in mobile computing technologies and related areas [3, 4]. This special issue contains five papers dealing with different aspects of security issues in social networking, web, and cloud computing and other related areas. The first article entitled “Experimental comparison of simulation tools for efficient cloud and mobile cloud computing applications” co-authored by Khadijah Bahwaireth et al. [5] presents experimental comparison of various simulation tools and shows how these simulation tools can be used for efficient cloud and mobile cloud computing applications. They considered CloudSim, CloudAnalyst, CloudReports, CloudExp, GreenCloud, and iCanCloud simulation tools for their study. Moreover, authors have also performed experiments using some of these simulation tools to show their capabilities and effectiveness. The second paper entitled “An adaptive approach for Linux memory analysis based on kernel code reconstruction” authored by Shuhui Zhang et al. [6] presents an adaptive approach for Linux memory analysis that can automatically identify the kernel version and recovery symbol information from an image. The proposed approach is able to automatically reconstruct the kernel code, identify the kernel version, recover symbol table files, and extract live system information by providing a memory image or a memory snapshot only. There is no other information required for it. Various experiments are performed and results indicate that proposed approach runs satisfactorily across a wide range of operating system versions. The third paper entitled “A secure cloud storage system combining time-based one-time password and automatic blocker protocol” authored by Sheren A. El-Booz et al. [7] presents a novel secure cloud storage system to ensure the protection of organizations’ data from the cloud provider, the third party auditor, and some users who may use their old accounts to access the data stored on the cloud. There are two authentication techniques used in the proposed system to improve the authentication level of security. (i) Time-based onetime password (TOTP) for cloud users verification and (ii) automatic blocker protocol (ABP) to fully protect the system from unauthorized third party auditor. Various experiments are performed and results prove the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed system when auditing shared data integrity. The fourth paper entitled “Generalized weighted tree similarity algorithms for taxonomy trees” is authored by Pramodh Krishna D. et al. [8]. In this paper, authors introduce a generalized formula to combine matching and missing values. Subsequently, authors proposed two generalized weighted tree similarity algorithms. The first * Correspondence: gupta.brij@gmail.com National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra, Kurukshetra, India Full list of author information is available at the end of the article EURASIP Journal on Information Security