Shalli Rani (Director, Research) completed her Post-doc from Manchester Metropolitan University, UK in June, 2023. She is Professor in Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University, Punjab, India. She has 18+ years teaching experience. She received MCA degree from Maharishi Dyanand University, Rohtak in 2004 and the M.Tech. degree in Computer Science from Janardan Rai Nagar Vidyapeeth University, Udaipur in 2007 and Ph.D. degree in Computer Applications from Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar in 2017. Her main area of interest and research are Wireless Sensor Networks, Underwater Sensor networks, Machine Learning and Internet of Things. She has published/accepted/presented more than 100+ papers in international journals /conferences (SCI+Scopus) and edited/authored five books with international publishers. She is serving as the associate editor of IEEE Future Directions Letters. She served as a guest editor in IEEE Transaction on Industrial Informatics, Hindawi WCMC and Elsevier IoT Journals. She has also served as reviewer in many repudiated journals of IEEE, Springer, Elsevier, IET, Hindawi and Wiley. She has worked on Big Data, Underwater Acoustic Sensors and IoT to show the importance of WSN in IoT applications. She received a young scientist award in Feb. 2014 from Punjab Science Congress, Lifetime Achievement Award and Supervisor of the year award from Global Innovation and Excellence, 2021. Her work has gained global and reputed recognition, and she has been nominated as one of the top 2% of scientists in her field by Stanford University.Dr. Himanshi Babbar is Assistant Professor- Research in CSE, working in Chitkara University, Rajpura, Punjab, India. She has 6+ years of teaching experience, CGC, Landran, Mohali, Punjab. She received an MCA (Master’s in Computer Applications) degree from Chitkara University, Punjab Campus in 2015 and completed her Ph.D. and Postdoctoral Fellowship in Computer Applications from Chitkara University, Punjab Campus and UAE in 2021 and 2022 respectively. Her area of research is Software Defined Networking, Load Balancing, Deep Learning, Intrusion Detection and Internet of Things. She has served as a reviewer in many conferences and journals of International Conference on Intelligent and Innovative Technologies in Computing, Electrical and Electronics (ICIITCEE 2023), IEEE Access, Scientific Reports, Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications, Ad Hoc Networks, Elsevier, Springer; Journal of Network and Systems Management, etc. She has published/accepted/presented many papers in major conferences, published more than 80 papers in SCI indexed journals and filed/published/granted more than 15 patents. She received the Young Researcher Award from Institute of Scholars (INSC) in 2023. She has also been nominated by Chitkara University, Punjab, India on Research Excellence Awards based on the highest Impact factor, Best Author in the years 2023, 2025, 2026 respectively.

• Preface. 1. Introduction to Modern Cyber Security Paradigms. 2. Understanding the AI-IoT-Cybersecurity Nexus. 3. Threat Modeling and Attack Surface Analysis. 4. AI-powered Cyber Attacks and Defense Mechanisms. 5. Federated Learning for Privacy-Preserving Security. 6. Edge Computing and Cognitive Security Frameworks. 7. Safeguarding Learning Spaces with IoT Architecture in Education: A Resilient Approach to Student Centric Smart Classrooms. 8. Blockchain for Trust Management and Identity Assurance. 9. Cybersecurity in Healthcare: Risks and Resilience. 10. Smart Cities and Autonomous Systems Security. 11. Post Quantum Cryptography and Futureproofing. 12. Analysis of Evolving Threats, Intelligent Defenses, and Strategic Imperatives. 13. Ethical, Legal and Policy Implications in Cybersecurity with Explainable AI. 14. Future Research Directions and Open Challenges.