ACNS 2026: Call for Papers

The 24th International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS 2026) will be held in NY, United States of America, on 22–25 June 2026.

ACNS is an annual conference focusing on current developments that advance the areas of applied cryptography, cyber security (including network and computer security) and privacy. The goal is to present both academic research works and advances on industrial and technical frontiers.

Important Dates

All deadlines are on the given day, 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth). The submission system opens two weeks before the deadline.

• First submission deadline
  • Submission: TBD
  • Notification: TBD
  • Camera ready: TBD
• Second submission deadline
  • Submission: TBD
  • Notification: TBD
  • Camera ready: TBD

Areas of Interest

Submissions may focus on the modeling, design, analysis, development, deployment, integration, maintenance performance, and usability of algorithms, protocols, standards, implementations, devices, as well as systems, standing in relation with applied cryptography, cyber security and privacy and advancing or bringing new insights to the state of the art.

Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

• Applied cryptography
• Artificial intelligence for security
• Automated security analysis
• Authentication, biometric security and privacy
• Blockchain security and privacy
• Cloud security and privacy
• Critical infrastructure security and privacy
• Cryptanalysis
• Cryptographic primitives and protocols
• Data protection
• Email, app, and web security and privacy
• Future Internet security and privacy
• Game-theoretic analysis of secure systems
• Hardware Security
• Identity management
• Internet fraud and cybercrime
• Internet-of-Things security and privacy
• Lightweight cryptography
• Malicious code and unsolicited software
• Metadata privacy and censorship resistance
• Mobile and wireless security
• Network security protocols
• Post-quantum security
• Privacy-enhancing technologies
• Secure distributed computing and consensus protocols
• Secure electronic voting
• Security and privacy metrics
• Security and privacy of systems based on ML and AI
• Side-channel analysis and physical attacks
• Systems security and privacy
• Trust management and trustworthy computing in networks or systems
• Usable security and privacy

Workshop Proposals

Besides the main conference, ACNS also seeks workshop proposals. Each satellite workshop will provide a forum to address a specific topic at the forefront of cybersecurity research. Papers accepted at the workshops will have post-proceedings published by Springer in the LNCS series as well.

Best Paper Awards

ACNS gives the best student paper award, with 1500 EUR prize sponsored by Springer, to encourage promising students to publish their best results at this venue. Any paper with a student as an author is eligible for this award. In addition, ACNS gives the best workshop paper award, with 500 EUR prize sponsored by Springer.

Instructions for Authors

Submissions must be done via the HotCRP website. The link will be announced shortly before the paper deadline.

ACNS 2026 will be an in-person conference. Since remote presentations or videos will not be accepted, authors submitting a paper must ensure that one of the authors can present the paper at the conference in person.

Submitted papers must not substantially overlap with papers that have been published (other than preprint) or accepted for publication or that are simultaneously in submission to a journal, conference, or workshop with published proceedings.

Systematization of Knowledge (SoK)

ACNS 2026 solicits the submission of Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) papers.

We encourage the authors to distinguish SoK submissions by adding the "SoK:" prefix to the title. SoK submissions will be reviewed by the full PC and held to the same standards as traditional research papers, but they will be accepted based on their treatment of existing work and value to the community, and not based on any new research results they may contain. Accepted papers will be presented at the conference and included in the proceedings.

Submission Guidelines

• Submissions must be anonymous, with no author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, or obvious references.
• Each submission must begin with a title, short abstract, and a list of keywords.
• All submissions must be submitted in PDF format, following the unmodified LNCS format (accessible on the Springer LCNS author guidelines webpage) and typeset using the corresponding LaTeX class file.
• They must fit within a page limit of 20 pages, including title and abstract, figures, etc., but excluding references. Optionally, any amount of clearly marked supplementary material may be supplied.
• To accommodate for changes requested in reviews, the page limit for the camera-ready proceedings versions is 30 pages, including references and appendices.

Conflicts of Interest

The program co-chairs require cooperation from both authors and program committee members to prevent submissions from being evaluated by reviewers who have a conflict of interest.

We regard the following relationships as conflicts of interest:

• Anyone who shares an institutional affiliation with an author at the time of submission (including secondary affiliations and consulting work)
• Anyone who was the advisor or advisee of an author at any time in the past
• Anyone the author has collaborated or published within the prior two years
• Anyone who is serving as the sponsor or administrator of a grant that funds your research
• Close personal or family ties

Ethical Considerations for Vulnerability Disclosure

Where research identifies a vulnerability, we expect that researchers act in a way that avoids gratuitous harm to affected users and, where possible, affirmatively protects those users.

It is the committee's sense that a disclosure window of 45 days to 90 days ahead of publication is consistent with authors' ethical obligations.