USENIX Security '20 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 29th USENIX Security Symposium will be held August 12–14, 2020.

Important: The USENIX Security Symposium moved to multiple submission deadlines last year and included 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. 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 10 and 11.

Important Dates

Spring Quarter Deadline

  • Refereed paper submissions due: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 8:00 pm EDT
  • Early reject notification: Monday, June 17, 2019
  • Author responses due: Friday, June 21, 2019
  • Notification to authors: Monday, August 19, 2019
  • Final papers files due: Thursday, September 19, 2019, 11:59 pm EDT

Summer Quarter Deadline

  • Refereed paper submission due: Friday, August 23, 2019, 8:00 pm EDT
  • Early reject notification: Monday, September 23, 2019
  • Author responses due: Friday, September 27, 2019
  • Notification to authors: Friday, November 1, 2019
  • Final papers files due: Monday, December 2, 2019, 11:59 pm EST

Fall Quarter Deadline

  • Refereed paper submission due: Friday, November 15, 2019, 8:00 pm EST
  • Early reject notification: Sunday, December 15, 2019
  • Author responses due: Friday, December 20, 2019
  • Notification to authors: Saturday, February 1, 2020
  • Final papers files due: Monday, March 2, 2020, 11:59 pm EST

Winter Quarter Deadline

  • Refereed paper submission due: Saturday, February 15, 2020, 8:00 pm EST
  • Early reject notification: Sunday, March 15, 2020
  • Author responses due: Friday, March 20, 2020
  • Notification to authors: Friday, May 1, 2020 Friday, May 15, 2020
  • Final papers files due: Monday, June 1, 2020, 11:59 pm EDT Monday, June 22, 2020, 11:59 pm EDT

Symposium Organizers

Program Co-Chairs

Srdjan Capkun, ETH Zurich
Franziska Roesner, University of Washington

Program Committee

Yasemin Acar, Leibniz University Hannover
Devdatta Akhawe, Figma, Inc.
Ben Andow, Google
Adam Aviv, United States Naval Academy
Michael Bailey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Adam Bates, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Lejla Batina, Radboud University
Lujo Bauer, Carnegie Mellon University
Nikita Borisov, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Herbert Bos, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Sven Bugiel, Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA)
Kevin Butler, University of Florida
Joe Calandrino, Federal Trade Commission
Stefano Calzavara, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
Yinzhi Cao, Johns Hopkins University
Lorenzo Cavallaro, King's College London
Stephen Checkoway, Oberlin College
William Cheswick, University of Pennsylvania
Cas Cremers, Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA)
Nathan Dautenhahn, Rice University
Lucas Davi, Universität Duisburg-Essen
Emiliano De Cristofaro, University College London
Adam Doupé, Arizona State University
Thomas Dullien, optimyze.cloud AG
Zakir Durumeric, Stanford University
Manuel Egele, Boston University
William Enck, North Carolina State University
Birhanu Eshete, University of Michigan, Dearborn
David Evans, University of Virginia
Sascha Fahl, Leibniz University Hannover
Giulia Fanti, Carnegie Mellon University
Nick Feamster, University of Chicago
Ariel J. Feldman, Google
Earlence Fernandes, University of Washington
Aurélien Francillon, EURECOM
David Freeman, Facebook
Kevin Fu, University of Michigan
Siddharth Garg, New York University
Carrie Gates, Bank of America
Daniel Genkin, University of Michigan
Matthew Green, Johns Hopkins University
Rachel Greenstadt, New York University
Daniel Gruss, Graz University of Technology
Xiali (Sharon) Hei, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Thorsten Holz, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Trent Jaeger, The Pennsylvania State University
Rob Jansen, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Mobin Javed, Lahore University of Management Sciences
Ari Juels, Cornell Tech
Apu Kapadia, Indiana University
Aniket Kate, Purdue
Vasileios Kemerlis, Brown University
Yongdae Kim, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Engin Kirda, Northeastern University
Tadayoshi Kohno, University of Washington
Farinaz Koushanfar, University of California, San Diego
Katharina Krombholz, Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA)
Pierre Laperdrix, CNRS, University of Lille
Mathias Lecuyer, Columbia University
Tancrède Lepoint, Google
Frank Li, Facebook/Georgia Institute of Technology
Martina Lindorfer, Technische Universität Wien
Long Lu, Northeastern University
Matteo Maffei, Technische Universität Wien
Stefan Mangard, Graz University of Technology
Ivan Martinovic, University of Oxford
Clémentine Maurice, IRISA
René Mayrhofer, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
Damon McCoy, New York University
Jon McCune, Google
Patrick McDaniel, The Pennsylvania State University
Sarah Meiklejohn, University College London
Jelena Mirkovic, USC/Information Sciences Institute
Esfandiar Mohammadi, University of Lübeck
Veelasha Moonsamy, Radboud University
Anita Nikolich, Illinois Institute of Technology
Shirin Nilizadeh, The University of Texas at Arlington
Guevara Noubir, Northeastern University
Nils Ole Tippenhauer, Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA)
Yossi Oren, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Nicolas Papernot, University of Toronto
Kenny Paterson, ETH Zurich
Mathias Payer, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Paul Pearce, Georgia Institute of Technology
Giancarlo Pellegrino, Stanford University and Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA)
Adrian Perrig, ETH Zurich
Christina Poepper, New York University Abu Dhabi
Jason Polakis, University of Illinois at Chicago
Adrienne Porter Felt, Google
Niels Provos, Stripe
Amir Rahmati, Stony Brook University
Aanjhan Ranganathan, Northeastern University
Kaveh Razavi, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Bradley Reaves, North Carolina State University
Elissa Redmiles, Princeton University
Konrad Rieck, Technische Universität Braunschweig
Eyal Ronen, Tel Aviv University
Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi, Technische Universität Darmstadt
Nolen Scaife, University of Florida
Wendy Seltzer, W3C and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Huasong Shan, JD.com Silicon Valley R&D Center
Micah Sherr, Georgetown University
Deian Stefan, University of California, San Diego
Ben Stock, Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA)
Gianluca Stringhini, Boston University
Yuan Tian, University of Virginia
Patrick Traynor, University of Florida
Carmela Troncoso, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Gene Tsudik, University of California, Irvine
Blase Ur, University of Chicago
Ingrid Verbauwhede, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Bimal Viswanath, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
David Wagner, University of California, Berkeley
Byron J. Williams, University of Florida
Xinyu Xing, The Pennsylvania State University
Wenyuan Xu, Zhejiang University
Yuval Yarom, University of Adelaide and Data61
Daniel Zappala, Brigham Young University
Mary Ellen Zurko, MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Steering Committee

Matt Blaze, Georgetown University
Dan Boneh, Stanford University
William Enck, North Carolina State University
Kevin Fu, University of Michigan
Casey Henderson, USENIX Association
Nadia Heninger, University of California, San Diego
Thorsten Holz, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Jaeyeon Jung, Samsung Electronics
Engin Kirda, Northeastern University
Tadayoshi Kohno, University of Washington
Thomas Ristenpart, Cornell Tech
Patrick Traynor, University of Florida
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

Due to USENIX Security '20 not occurring as an in-person event, there will not be a poster session or lightning talks this year.

Go to Paper Submission Policies and Instructions