The 6th Workshop on Security Information Workers

Our first quarterly WSIW event will be November 9 at 12:00 EST! If you'd like to get more information, visit the WSIW website!

Important Dates

Workshop paper submission deadlineThursday June 25, 2020 - 23:59 AoE (extended) Thursday May 28, 2020 - 23:59 AoE
Workshop camera-ready papers dueMonday July 27, 2020
WorkshopSunday August 9th, 2020 - 10:00-14:00 EDT

Venue and Registration

The workshop is associated with the 16th Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security. The workshop will be held online using Zoom. Registration for the workshop is FREE. Registrants will receive a link to the Zoom meeting.

Workshop Date: August 9, 2020
Time: 10:00 am – 14:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (New York, USA) (check your local time at https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html)

Registration link: https://umdsurvey.umd.edu/jfe/form/SV_2noHHhr6ANjL3SJ

6th Workshop on Security Information Workers - Call for Papers

The human element is often considered the weakest element in security. Although many kinds of humans interact with systems that are designed to be secure, one particular type of human is especially important, the security information workers who develop, use, and manipulate security-related information and data as a significant part of their jobs. Security information workers include:
  • Software developers, who design and build software that manages and protects sensitive information;
  • Security and system administrators, who deploy and manage security-sensitive software and hardware systems;
  • IT professionals whose decisions have impact on end users' security and privacy;
  • Intelligence analysts, who collect and analyze data about security matters to understand information and make predictions; and
  • Security consultants and educators, who provide guidance to individuals and organizations on practicing good security behaviors and implementing security technologies
This workshop aims to develop and stimulate discussion about security information workers. We will consider topics including but not limited to:
  • Empirical studies of security information workers, including case studies, experiments, field studies, and surveys;
  • New tools designed to assist security information workers;
  • Infrastructure for better understanding security information workers;
  • Information visualization and other techniques designed to help security information workers do their jobs;
  • Evaluations of tools and techniques for security information workers.

Successful submissions to this workshop will explicitly be informed by an understanding of how security information workers do their jobs, and the results will explicitly address how we understand security information workers.

We solicit papers describing new research contributions in this area as well as case studies, work in progress, preliminary results, novel ideas, and position papers. Papers should be at most six pages (excluding references) using the SOUPS template format (MS Word or LaTeX). Submissions may be made at https://wsiw2020.usenix.hotcrp.com.

A word about paper length. Papers should be succinct, but thorough in presenting the work. Typical papers will be 5-6 pages long (plus references) but papers can be shorter (e.g. 4-5 pages) if, for example, they present an novel idea with limited preliminary results or a position likely to drive a lively discussion. Shorter, more focused papers are encouraged and will be reviewed like any other paper. If you only need 2 or 4 pages (plus references) to clearly explain your work or idea, please submit a paper of that length. Reviewers will be instructed to assess the value of the talk to the workshop audience irrespective of the paper length; however, we stress again that the presentation should be sufficiently thorough for reviewers to make this evaluation.

Workshop papers will be made available to attendees prior to the workshop. Paper presentations will be approximately 10 minutes in length followed by 5 minutes of questions and answers. Presentations must be made in-person unless the SOUPS conference moves to a remote format.

The workshop will feature a keynote talk followed by paper presentations. Breakout sessions at the end of the day will provide an opportunity for smaller group interactive discussion about related topics of interest, which may include methods, challenges, and future directions in security information workers research.

The deadline for submissions is June 25 23:59 AoE (extended) May 28 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth). Note, due to the ever evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible that this deadline will be delayed. Regarding all COVID-19 related decisions, we will follow SOUPS’s lead (e.g., submission deadlines, conference date, physical vs. virtual proceedings, etc.) and update our workshop website as changes occur.

You can find out more at https://wsiw2020.sec.uni-hannover.de/ or by emailing soups20-wsiw@usenix.org.

Presenter Instructions

The talks are held live on Zoom with a Q&A directly afterward. Please adhere to the time limitation of 10-12 minutes for your talk. Each presenter needs to be available for a test run before the workshop.

Organizing Committee / Program Committee Chairs

  • Yasemin Acar, Leibniz University Hannover
  • Sascha Fahl, Leibniz University Hannover
  • Julie Haney, National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • Daniel Votipka, University of Maryland

Programm Committee

  • Mohammad Tahaei, University of Edinburgh
  • Hala Assal, Carleton University

Web Chair

  • Christian Stransky, Leibniz University Hannover