Special section on testing and security of Web systems

This special section is devoted to a selection of papers that have been originally published in the Proceedings of the International Workshop on Web Quality, Verification and Validation (WQVV) held in Como, Italy, in July 2007. The workshop was part of the Seventh International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE 2007). These papers investigate different issues of two fundamental "aspects" of quality and dependability of modern Web systems: testing and security. The main contribution of this special section consists in trying to bring the gap between research and "industrial" practice in Web systems. The use of new technologies, tools and methodologies is increasing in the Web and it makes the systems more and more interactive and responsive than in the past. Therefore, limits and problems related to specific aspects of systems quality and dependability are investigated, and new approaches and ideas are proposed to overcome such limitations. © Springer-Verlag 2008.