[WORKSHOP] 6th International Workshop on Traffic Measurements for Cybersecurity (WTMC 2021)

Current communication networks are increasingly becoming pervasive, complex, and ever-evolving due to factors like enormous growth in the number of network users, continuous appearance of network applications, increasing amount of data transferred, and diversity of user behaviors. Understanding and measuring traffic in such networks is a difficult yet vital task for network management but recently also for cybersecurity purposes. Network traffic measuring and monitoring can, for example, enable the analysis of the spreading of malicious software and its capabilities or can help to understand the nature of various network threats including those that exploit users’ behavior and other user’s sensitive information. On the other hand network traffic investigation can also help to assess the effectiveness of the existing countermeasures or contribute to building new, better ones. Recently, traffic measurements have been utilized in the area of economics of cybersecurity e.g. to assess ISP “badness” or to estimate the revenue of cybercriminals.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together the research accomplishments provided by researchers from academia and the industry. The other goal is to show the latest research results in the field of cybersecurity and understand how traffic measurements can influence it. We encourage prospective authors to submit related distinguished research papers on the subject of both: theoretical approaches and practical case reviews. This workshop presents some of the most relevant ongoing research in cybersecurity seen from the traffic measurements perspective.

The workshop will be accessible to both non-experts interested in learning about this area and experts interested in hearing about new research and approaches.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Measurements for network incidents response, investigation, and evidence handling
• Measurements of cyber attacks (e.g. DDoS, botnet, malware, and phishing campaigns)
• Measurements for security of web-based applications and services (e.g. social networking)
• Measurements for network anomalies detection
• Measurements for economics of cybersecurity and privacy
• Measurements of security and privacy for the Internet of Things
• Measurements of Internet censorship
• Measurement studies describing the impacts of regulations on cybersecurity and users' privacy (e.g. GDPR)
• Network traffic analysis to discover the nature and evolution of the cybersecurity threats
• Measurements of cyber-physical systems security
• Measurements for assessing the effectiveness of the threats detection/prevention methods and countermeasures
• Novel passive, active and hybrid measurements techniques for cybersecurity purposes
• Traffic classification and topology discovery tools for monitoring the evolving status of the network from the cybersecurity perspective
• Correlation of measurements across multiple layers, protocols or networks for cybersecurity purposes
• Machine learning and data mining for analysis of network traffic measurements for cybersecurity
• Novel approaches for large-scale measurements for cybersecurity (e.g. crowd-sourcing)
• Novel visualization approaches to detect network attacks and other threats
• Analysis of network traffic to provide new insights about network structure and behavior from the security perspective
• Measurements of network protocol and applications behavior and its impact on cybersecurity and users' privacy
• Vulnerability notifications
• Measurements for new cybersecurity settings
• Ethical issues in measurements for cybersecurity
• Reappraisal of previous empirical findings

SUBMISSIONS

Papers will be accepted based on peer review (3-4 per paper) and should contain original, high-quality work. All papers must be written in English.

Authors are invited to submit regular papers (maximum 6 pages) including references and appendices via EasyChair. Papers must be formatted for US letter (not A4) size paper. The text must be formatted in a two-column layout, with columns no more than 9.5 in. tall and 3.5 in. wide. The text must be in Times font, 10-point or larger, with 11-point or larger line spacing. Authors are encouraged to use the IEEE conference proceedings templates. LaTeX submissions should use IEEEtran.cls version 1.8. Failure to adhere to the page limit and formatting requirements will be grounds for rejection.

Papers describing cybersecurity measurement studies should include an ethical considerations paragraph, and where applicable reach out to their institutional ethics committee or institutional review board. For guidance see the Menlo Report and its companion document.

Authors are encouraged to share developed software implementations, measurement datasets, simulation models, etc. used in articles allowing other researchers to build upon and extend current results. Authors may include a paragraph about reproducible research.

Submission page: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wtmc2021

Submission of a paper implies that should the paper be accepted, at least one of the authors will register and present the paper at the conference.

Papers accepted by the workshop will be published through IEEE Xplore in a volume accompanying the main IEEE S&P conference proceedings. All WTMC workshop authors are also invited to present a poster during the IEEE S&P Symposium. The extended versions of all accepted papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Cyber Security and Mobility (confirmed). The decision will depend on the quality of the paper and the quality of the presentation at WTMC 2021. The final decision will be made by co-chairs after the workshop.

IMPORTANT DATES

February 1, 2021 (AoE, UTC -12) [Extended]: Paper Submission
March 1, 2021: Notification Date
April 18, 2021: Camera-Ready Paper Deadline (hard)

WORKSHOP REGISTRATION

The workshop registration is now open. Please follow the instructions on the IEEE S&P conference page here.

REGISTRATION WAIVERS

Registration grants are available to cover the expenses of student attendees to the IEEE S&P Symposium and WTMC. We encourage applications from students from a wide variety of institutions, diverse backgrounds, and first-time attendees. Undergraduate and graduate students will be considered for this award. Applications are due by May 14, 2021. You can find more details about Student Registration Grants here: here.

VENUE

The 6th WTMC workshop will be held as a virtual workshop.

PROGRAM

Time zone: Central European Summer Time (CEST)