Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications have gained interest in academia and industry, especially because cars in smart cities will soon be autonomous and connected via the internet. V2X communications are expected to hit the market at 7 trillion USD in transportation and infotainment services, whilst unmanned automated vehicles (UAVs) will hit the market at 127 billion USD. The architecture of V2X is based on a number of sensors that can create and disseminate data from their surroundings through the vehicle-to-person (V2P), vehicle-to-network (V2N), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) links. V2X communications will operate via the Internet-of-things (IoT) (e.g., sensors, actuators, processors, RFID tags, etc.), which in turn will generate a large volume of real-time data to control the vehicles automatically.

It has been recently revealed that future V2X vehicles will generate more than 1 terabyte of traffic data in each round. This situation can become problematic if the security and privacy control of the real-time data for V2X communication are compromised. The V2X networks will improve in several ways (e.g., architecture, modes of communication, processing capacity, connectivity support, etc.). The V2X vehicles will require new communication protocols to become more efficient, safe, and reliable. Furthermore, the security and privacy issues of the sensors in connected cars over the wireless medium could bring unprecedented challenges to V2X communications. The broadcast nature of the wireless channels is another undesirable phenomenon and limiting factor. Therefore, the existing wireless infrastructure is not enough to secure the ubiquitous connectivity and broadband coverage of future UAVs, and V2X networks. We need V2X communication in a very secure and reliable way. This is crucial for creating a fail-safe traffic infrastructure in smart cities since data privacy, and security violations are becoming more diverse in our daily lives.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collate original research articles, as well as review articles, investigating featured algorithms, cyber-attacks, and security solutions.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Security, privacy, and audit control of IoT for secure V2X networks
• Authorisation, authentication, and access control for V2X communications
• Securing V2X multimedia services for 5G Networks
• Security and privacy techniques for intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and for sensor data within V2X
• Machine learning and cloud computing-based security solutions for UAV data
• Biometric modalities and resilience models for advanced IoT security, and privacy within V2X communications
• Vulnerabilities detection and threat prevention systems for IoT networks
• Light-weight cyber security and privacy preservation techniques for V2X networks
• Intrusion detection, encryption and identity management techniques in UAVs
• Privacy-preserved data mining and big data analysis techniques for vehicle data
• Security, privacy, and reliability of edge-enabled V2X applications
• Cyber security threat, vulnerabilities models, and risk management in V2X communication
• Blockchain technology-based security for UAVs and V2X communication
• Recent practices and future perspectives of security and privacy in UAVs, and V2X applications
• Legal, ethical, and social considerations in IoT security for V2X communication