In the increasingly inter-connected society, multimedia social networks (MSN) have become a 'mainstream' tool used by online users to connect and share contents with other users 24/7 in real-time. It is, therefore, unsurprising that MSNs have become a salient area of inquiry by computer scientists and computer security researchers. For example, researchers need to design intelligent computing and soft computing technologies to improve multimedia system functions, efficiency and performance, as well as improving user's sharing experiences (e.g. using recommendation systems and more effective algorithms). Ensuring the security of users and data are also an ongoing topic of interest and importance due to the ease in producing and sharing user and multimedia content using MSNs. In recent years, we have seen advances in multimedia system security and soft computing for MSN applications, such as Bhard^security mechanisms (e.g. protocols and methodologies) and Bsoft^computing methods (e.g. machine learning and rough set), as well as research efforts in trust assessment, risk management and social factors to understand the trade-off between the effectiveness and security in MSNs.This special issue is dedicated to the reporting of state-of-the-art and recent advancements in this emerging area of enquiry. We received 26 submissions for this special issue, of which 12 were accepted for publication (i.e. 46 % acceptance rate). Each paper went through a rigorous peer review process, in addition to multiple follow-up rounds with the authors. A summary of the papers is categorized and presented below.