Overview
A scientific paper consists of a constellation of artifacts that extend beyond the document itself: software, hardware, evaluation data and documentation, raw survey results, mechanized proofs, models, test suites, benchmarks, and so on. In some cases, the quality of these artifacts is as important as that of the paper itself. To emphasize the importance of such artifacts, the benefits to the authors and the community as a whole, and to promote the availability and reproducibility of experimental results, VehicleSec '26 runs an Artifact Evaluation. Authors of accepted papers are encouraged to submit their artifacts for availability, functionality, and reproducibility assessments. The Artifact Evaluation Committee (AEC) will review each submitted artifact and also grant the Distinguished Artifact Award to outstanding artifacts accepted to VehicleSec '26.
Important Dates
All deadlines are at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth) time.
- Artifact registration deadline: Tuesday, April 14, 2026
- Artifact submission deadline: Tuesday, April 21, 2026
- Discussion period: Monday, May 11–Wednesday, May 27, 2026
- Badge notification to authors: Wednesday, June 3, 2026
Available Badges
We follow the USENIX Badges, consisting of availability, functionality, and reproducibility.
Process
We encourage authors of accepted papers (including Accepted on Shepherd Approval papers) to openly share their research artifacts by submitting them for AE verification before the artifact submission deadline.
Submitting an artifact is optional for an accepted paper. However, during shepherding, reviewers may request access to the artifact to verify the paper's claims. If the artifact is requested but cannot be shared, a detailed justification must be provided and must be validated by the reviewers (i.e., if the reviewers disagree with the justification, the authors have to submit their artifacts, or their paper will be rejected).
For example, some artifacts may be subject to licensing restrictions, NDA, or ethical concerns (in some cases, e.g., interview transcripts or zero-day exploits). In case of doubt, contact the program chairs and AEC chairs beforehand. Each submitted artifact will be reviewed by the Artifact Evaluation Committee (AEC).
Please note that the artifacts need to be made available on a platform that supports permanent access. For this purpose, we recommend Zenodo. Other valid hosting options include institutional and third-party digital repositories such as FigShare and OSF. On the other hand, we do not accept artifacts hosted on personal websites or software development repositories, such as GitHub. Please see the artifact submission instructions. In case of any questions, please contact the AEC chairs.
In some cases, sensitive artifacts cannot be made publicly available. In such cases, we recommend that the authors use the "restricted access" features of the recommended platforms. For example, Zenodo supports this feature for researchers to share data in a restricted manner. This enables artifacts to be permanently available while allowing the authors to keep the access restricted. This "restricted access" feature should only be used for sensitive artifacts; the remaining non-sensitive artifacts have to be shared publicly (i.e., you may have two repositories, one for sensitive artifacts and one for the rest). Restricting the access of non-sensitive artifacts during or after artifact evaluation is a violation of the Call for Artifacts, and the corresponding badges will be rescinded.
For functionality and reproducibility assessments, authors define the contents of their artifact submission. For example, software, hardware, data sets, survey results, test suites, mechanized (but not paper) proofs, access to special hardware, and so on. Authors choose which badges their artifact should be evaluated towards, i.e., one or two of the following: Artifacts Functional and Results Reproduced. In general, good artifacts are expected to be: consistent with the paper, as complete as possible, well documented, and easy to (re)use. The AEC will read the paper and then judge if the artifact meets the criteria for each of the requested badges.
Each artifact submission will be reviewed by at least two AEC members. The review is single-blind (i.e., no need to anonymize the artifacts, neither for availability verification nor for functionality and reproducibility assessments) and strictly confidential. All AEC members are instructed to treat the artifact confidentially during and after completing the evaluation and not to retain any part of the artifact after evaluation. Artifacts can include models, data files, proprietary binaries, exploits under embargo, etc. If your paper is under embargo during artifact evaluation, please let the AEC chairs know beforehand; you will still need to submit your artifacts for availability verification. Even if authors cannot make their artifacts publicly accessible (e.g., proprietary files), they could still apply for Artifacts Functional and Results Reproduced. Since we anticipate small glitches with installation and use, reviewers may communicate with authors during artifact evaluation to help resolve glitches while preserving reviewer anonymity. Please make sure that at least one of the authors is reachable to answer questions in a timely manner.
Submission Instructions
Authors of accepted papers who want to participate in artifact evaluation are expected to submit the following via the artifact submission site.
- A PDF of the most recent version of the accepted paper.
- A PDF with the Artifact Appendix, a document describing the artifact, and all the steps to reproduce the experiments. Each Artifact Appendix must include:
- Abstract: a brief summary of the artifact's purpose, its components, and what claims it supports
- Description and Requirements: describes the steps for setting up the evaluation environment and any concerns that might be of interest to the audience. This section should contain:
- Security, privacy, and ethical concerns: outlines any risk or ethical consideration for the evaluators
- Access to the artifact: A DOI or stable reference (e.g., Zenodo, FigShare, or OSF) to the code and the data.
- Note: GitHub or personal websites are not accepted for final availability, but are accepted for the artifact evaluation phase (with a specific commit ID).
- Required badges: List of the available badges requested by the authors: https://secartifacts.github.io/usenixsec2026/badges
- Hardware dependencies: Lists CPU, RAM, and GPU requirements (if any)
- Software dependencies: Specifies OS, languages, and required libraries (if any)
- Benchmarks: Lists datasets or test cases used for evaluation (if any)
- Set-up: details installation steps and basic functionality tests to verify the environment
- Evaluation workflow: Details the steps to reproduce the experiments presented in the paper. For each experiment, this section should highlight:
- Major claims: Explicitly lists the scientific claims the artifact intends to prove
- Experiments: Step-by-step instructions for running specific experiments, including estimated human and computing time
- Notes of reusability/version: Contains information on how the artifact can be adapted and references the LaTeX template version used
Specific questions about artifact submissions may be sent to the AEC chairs at [email protected]. The chairs will respond to individual questions about the AE process if contacted at least two working days before the artifact submission deadline.
Artifact Evaluation Committee
Artifact Evaluation Committee Co-Chairs
Dario Stabili, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Taegyu Kim, The Pennsylvania State University
Artifact Evaluation Committee
Zain Ul Abideen, University of Idaho
Hassan El Alami, Howard University
Rohan Dilip Bhosle, Microsoft
Zheyun Feng, University of New Hampshire
Dimitri Galli, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Kamel Ghali, KAGE Corporation, Car Hacking Village
Avirek Ghatia, Salesforce
Ishaan Gupta, Google
Fan Huang, Indiana University Bloomington
Joseph Khoury, Louisiana State University
Nahyun Lee, Penn State University
Rao Li, Pennsylvania State University
Gianmarco Lusvardi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Xingyu Lyu, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Naga Nithin Manne, Argonne National Laboratory
Jainta Paul, University of Utah
Ravi Chandra Sadineni, Google
Partho Sarthi, NVIDIA
Filip Valgimigli, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Connor Weyers, Indiana University Bloomington
Doguhan Yeke, Purdue University
Syed Mohammad Abbas Zaidi, NED University of Engineering and Technology
Ruixuan Zhang, New York University
Giovanni Gambigliani Zoccoli, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia