USENIX Security '19 Call for Papers

Symposium Overview

The USENIX Security Symposium brings together researchers, practitioners, system administrators, system programmers, and others interested in the latest advances in the security and privacy of computer systems and networks. The 28th USENIX Security Symposium will be held August 14–16, 2019, in Santa Clara, CA.

Important: The USENIX Security Symposium is moving to multiple submission deadlines for USENIX Security '19. This change includes changes to the review process and submission policies. Detailed information is available at USENIX Security Publication Model Changes.

All researchers are encouraged to submit papers covering novel and scientifically significant practical works in computer security. There will be two quarterly submission deadlines for USENIX Security ’19. The fall quarter submissions deadline is Thursday, November 15, 2018, 5:00 pm PST. The winter quarter submissions deadline is Friday, February 15, 2019, 5:00 pm PST. The Symposium will span three days with a technical program including refereed papers, invited talks, posters, panel discussions, and Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. Co-located events will precede the Symposium on August 12 and 13.

Important Dates

Fall Quarter Deadline

  • Refereed paper submissions due: Thursday, November 15, 2018, 5:00 pm PST
  • Early reject notification: Friday, December 14, 2018
  • Author responses due: Tuesday, December 18, 2018
  • Notification to authors: Friday, January 18, 2019
  • Final papers due: Monday, February 18, 2019, 9:00 pm PST

Winter Quarter Deadline

  • Refereed paper submission due: Friday, February 15, 2019, 5:00 pm PST
  • Early reject notification: Thursday, March 21, 2019
  • Author responses due: Tuesday March 26, 2019
  • Notification to authors: Wednesday, May 1, 2019
  • Final papers due: Saturday, June 1, 2019, 9:00 pm PDT

  • Invited talk and panel proposals due: Friday, February 15, 2019, 5:00 pm PST
  • Poster proposals due: Tuesday, July 9, 2019, 9:00 pm PDT
  • Notification to poster presenters: Tuesday, July 16, 2019
  • Lightning Talks submissions due: Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 12:00 pm PDT

Symposium Organizers

Program Co-Chairs

Nadia Heninger, University of California, San Diego
Patrick Traynor, University of Florida

Program Committee

Yasemin Acar, Leibniz University Hannover
Sadia Afroz, University of California, Berkeley/International Computer Science Institute
Devdatta Akhawe, Dropbox
Johanna Amann, International Computer Science Institute
Adam Aviv, United States Naval Academy
Michael Bailey, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Adam Bates, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Vincent Bindschaedler, University of Florida
Joseph Bonneau, New York University
Nikita Borisov, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Sven Bugiel, CISPA Helmholtz Center i.G.
Kevin Butler, University of Florida
Joe Calandrino, Federal Trade Commission
Stefano Calzavara, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
Yinzhi Cao, Johns Hopkins University
Srdjan Capkun, ETH Zurich
Lorenzo Cavallaro, King's College London
Stephen Checkoway, Oberlin College
Bill Cheswick, AT&T Labs—Research
Marshini Chetty, Princeton University
Mihai Christodorescu, VISA Research
Erinn Clark, First Look Media
George Danezis, University College London
Nathan Dautenhahn, Rice University
Roger Dingledine, The Tor Project
Adam Doupe, Arizona State University
Thomas Dullien, Google
Zakir Durumeric, Stanford University
Manuel Egele, Boston University
William Enck, North Carolina State University
Roya Ensafi, University of Michigan
David Evans, University of Virginia
Sascha Fahl, Leibniz University Hannover
Giulia Fanti, Carnegie Mellon University
Nick Feamster, University of Chicago
Adrienne Porter Felt, Google
Earlence Fernandes, University of Washington
David Freeman, Facebook
Daniel Genkin, University of Michigan
Neil Gong, Iowa State University
Matthew Green, Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute
Rachel Greenstadt, Drexel University
Daniel Gruss, Graz University of Technology
Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Center for Democracy & Technology
Xiali (Sharon) Hei, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Thorsten Holz, Ruhr-University Bochum
Trent Jaeger, The Pennsylvania State University
Rob Jansen, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Mobin Javed, Lahore University of Management Sciences
Chris Kanich, University of Illinois at Chicago
Vasileios Kemerlis, Brown University
Yongdae Kim, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Lea Kissner, Humu
Yoshi Kohno, University of Washington
Farinaz Koushanfar, University of California, San Diego
Katharina Krombholz, CISPA Helmholtz Center i.G.
Ben Laurie, Google
Tancrède Lepoint, Google
Martina Lindorfer, Technische Universität Wien
Allison Mankin, Salesforce
Ivan Martinovic, Oxford University
Stephen McCamant, University of Minnesota
Jon McCune, Google
Patrick McDaniel, The Pennsylvania State University
Sarah Meiklejohn, University College London
Jelena Mirkovic, USC/Information Sciences Institute
Prateek Mittal, Princeton University
Veelasha Moonsamy, Utrecht University
Adwait Nadkarni, College of William & Mary
Yossi Oren, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Nicolas Papernot, The Pennsylvania State University
Kenny Paterson, Royal Holloway
Mathias Payer, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Giancarlo Pellegrino, Stanford University
Christina Pöpper, New York University Abu Dhabi
Brad Reaves, North Carolina State University
Elissa Redmiles, Microsoft Research and Princeton University
Konrad Rieck, Technische Universität Braunschweig
Tom Ristenpart, Cornell Tech
Tom Ritter, Mozilla
Franziska Roesner, University of Washington
Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi, Technische Universität Darmstadt
Prateek Saxena, National University of Singapore
Nolen Scaife, University of Florida
Wendy Seltzer, W3C/Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Micah Sherr, Georgetown University
Deian Stefan, University of California, San Diego
Ben Stock, CISPA Helmholtz Center i.G.
Gianluca Stringhini, Boston University
Dave 'Jing' Tian, University of Florida
Luke Valenta, University of Pennsylvania
Ingrid Verbauwhede, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
David Wagner, University of California, Berkeley
Byron Williams, University of Florida
Eric Wustrow, University of Colorado Boulder
Wenyuan Xu, Zhejiang University
Yuval Yarom, University of Adelaide and Data61
Tuba Yavuz, University of Florida
Daniel Zappala, Brigham Young University
Mary Ellen Zurko, MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Invited Talks Chair

Devdatta Akhawe, Dropbox

Invited Talks Committee

Alex Gantman, Qualcomm
Giancarlo Pellegrino, Stanford University
Elissa Redmiles, Microsoft Research and Princeton University

Lightning Talks Chair

Christina Garman, Purdue University

Poster Session Chair

Brad Reaves, North Carolina State University

Test of Time Awards Committee

Matt Blaze, University of Pennsylvania
Dan Boneh, Stanford University
Kevin Fu, University of Michigan
Fabian Monrose, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Steering Committee

Matt Blaze, University of Pennsylvania
Dan Boneh, Stanford University
William Enck, North Carolina State University
Kevin Fu, University of Michigan
Casey Henderson, USENIX Association
Thorsten Holz, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Jaeyeon Jung, Samsung Electronics
Engin Kirda, Northeastern University
Tadayoshi Kohno, University of Washington
Adrienne Porter Felt, Google
Thomas Ristenpart, Cornell Tech
David Wagner, University of California, Berkeley

Symposium Topics

Refereed paper submissions are solicited in all areas relating to systems research in security and privacy, including but not limited to:

  • System security
    • Operating systems security
    • Web security
    • Mobile systems security
    • Distributed systems security
    • Cloud computing security
  • Network security
    • Intrusion and anomaly detection and prevention
    • Network infrastructure security
    • Denial-of-service attacks and countermeasures
    • Wireless security
  • Security analysis
    • Malware analysis
    • Analysis of network and security protocols
    • Attacks with novel insights, techniques, or results
    • Forensics and diagnostics for security
    • Automated security analysis of hardware designs and implementation
    • Automated security analysis of source code and binaries
    • Program analysis
  • Data-driven security and measurement studies
    • Measurements of fraud, malware, spam
    • Measurements of human behavior and security
  • Privacy-enhancing technologies and anonymity
  • Usable security and privacy
  • Language-based security
  • Hardware security
    • Secure computer architectures
    • Embedded systems security
    • Methods for detection of malicious or counterfeit hardware
    • Side channels
  • Research on surveillance and censorship
  • Social issues and security
    • Research on computer security law and policy
    • Ethics of computer security research
    • Research on security education and training
  • Applications of cryptography
    • Analysis of deployed cryptography and cryptographic protocols
    • Cryptographic implementation analysis
    • New cryptographic protocols with real-world applications

This topic list is not meant to be exhaustive; USENIX Security is interested in all aspects of computing systems security and privacy. Papers without a clear application to security or privacy, however, will be considered out of scope and may be rejected without full review.

Refereed Papers

Papers that have been formally reviewed and accepted will be presented during the Symposium and published in the Symposium Proceedings. By submitting a paper, you agree that at least one of the authors will attend the conference to present it. If the conference registration fee will pose a hardship for the presenter of the accepted paper, please contact conference@usenix.org.

A major mission of the USENIX Association is to provide for the creation and dissemination of new knowledge. In keeping with this and as part of USENIX’s open access policy, the Proceedings will be available online for registered attendees before the Symposium and for everyone starting on the opening day of the technical sessions. USENIX also allows authors to retain ownership of the copyright in their works, requesting only that USENIX be granted the right to be the first publisher of that work. See our sample consent form for the complete terms of publication.

Go to Paper Submission Policies and Instructions page for more information.

Symposium Activities

Invited Talks, Panels, Poster Session, and BoFs

In addition to the refereed papers and the keynote presentation, the technical program will include invited talks, panel discussions, a poster session, and Birds-of-a-Feather sessions (BoFs). You are invited to make suggestions regarding topics or speakers in any of these sessions via email to the contacts listed below or to the program co-chairs at sec19chairs@usenix.org.

Invited Talks and Panel Discussions

Invited talks and panel discussions will be held in parallel with the refereed paper sessions. Please submit topic suggestions and talk and panel proposals via email to sec19it@usenix.org by Friday, February 15, 2019, 5:00 pm PST.

Poster Session

Would you like to share a provocative opinion, an interesting preliminary work, or a cool idea that will spark discussion at this year’s USENIX Security Symposium? The poster session is the perfect venue to introduce such new or ongoing work. Poster presenters will have the entirety of the evening reception to discuss their work, get exposure, and receive feedback from attendees.

To submit a poster, please submit a draft of your poster, in PDF (maximum size 36" by 48"), or a one-page abstract via the poster session submission form, by Tuesday, July 9, 2019, 9:00 pm PDT. Decisions will be made by Tuesday, July 16, 2019. Posters will not be included in the proceedings but may be made available online if circumstances permit. Poster submissions must include the authors’ names, affiliations, and contact information. At least one author of each accepted poster must register for and attend the Symposium to present the poster.

Poster authors are optionally encouraged to prepare their posters using the Better Posters template by Mike Morrison, available at https://osf.io/ef53g/. This initiative was recently featured by National Public Radio (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/11/729314248/to-save-the-science-poster-researchers-want-to-kill-it-and-start-over), and more information is also available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RwJbhkCA58.

Lightning Talks

We will host a Lightning Talks session (also previously known as Work-in-Progress/Rump session) on the evening of Wednesday, August 14, 2019. This is intended as an informal session for short and engaging presentations on recent unpublished results, work in progress, or other topics of interest to the USENIX Security attendees. As in the past, talks do not always need to be serious and funny talks are encouraged! This year, USENIX will generously sponsor awards for the most engaging talks. Bragging rights and small cash prizes can be yours for a great talk! For full consideration, submit your lightning talk via the lighting talk submission form through July 27, 2019. Only talks submitted by this deadline will be considered for the awards. You can continue submitting talks through HotCRP, or by emailing sec19lightning@usenix.org until Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 12:00 pm PDT.

Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions (BoFs)

Birds-of-a-Feather sessions (BoFs) will be held Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. Birds-of-a-Feather sessions are informal gatherings of persons interested in a particular topic. BoFs often feature a presentation or a demonstration followed by discussion, announcements, and the sharing of strategies. BoFs can be scheduled on site or in advance. To schedule a BoF, please send email to the USENIX Conference Department at bofs@usenix.org with the title and a brief description of the BoF; the name, title, affiliation, and email address of the facilitator; and your preference of date and time.

Go to Paper Submission Policies and Instructions