MAY 12-15, 2025 AT THE HYATT REGENCY SAN FRANCISCO, SAN FRANCISCO, CA

46th IEEE Symposium on
Security and Privacy

Call for Papers

Since 1980 in Oakland, the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy has been the premier forum for computer security research, presenting the latest developments and bringing together researchers and practitioners. We solicit previously unpublished papers offering novel research contributions in any aspect of security or privacy. Papers may present advances in the theory, design, implementation, analysis, verification, or empirical evaluation and measurement of secure systems. Theoretical papers must make a convincing case for the relevance of their results to practice.

Topics of interest include:

This topic list is not meant to be exhaustive; S&P is interested in all aspects of computer 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.

Systematization of Knowledge Papers

As in past years, we solicit systematization of knowledge (SoK) papers that evaluate, systematize, and contextualize existing knowledge, as such papers can provide a high value to our community. Suitable papers are those that provide an important new viewpoint on an established, major research area, support or challenge long-held beliefs in such an area with compelling evidence, or present a convincing, comprehensive new taxonomy of such an area. Survey papers without such insights are not appropriate and may be rejected without full review. Submissions will be distinguished by the prefix “SoK:” in the title and a checkbox on the submission form. They 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 symposium and included in the proceedings. You can find an overview of recent SoK papers at https://oaklandsok.github.io.

Submission Deadlines & Decisions

Similar to 2024, for each submission, one of the following decisions will be made:

Public Meta-Reviews: Similar to 2024, all accepted papers will be published with a meta-review (< 500 words) in the final PDF that lists: (a) the reasons the PC decided to accept the paper and (b) concerns the PC has with the paper. Authors will be given the option to write a response to the meta-review (< 500 words) which will be published as part of the meta-review. Authors will be given a draft meta-review at the time of acceptance. Authors will be given the option of addressing some or all of the concerns within one review cycle. A shepherd will remove concerns from the meta-review if they are sufficiently addressed by the revisions.

The goal of this process is to provide greater transparency and to better scope change requests made by reviewers. More information about the reasons behind this change can be found on the 2024 IEEE S&P website.

Symposium Event (Important Changes)

The number of papers accepted to IEEE S&P continues to grow substantially each year. Due to conference venue limitations and costs, each accepted paper will have: (a) a short talk presentation (e.g., 5-7 minutes, length determined based on the number of accepted papers) and (b) a poster presentation immediately following the talk session containing the paper. All accepted papers are required to present both a short talk and a poster.

Important Dates

All deadlines are 23:59:59 AoE (UTC-12).

First deadline

Second deadline

Rebuttal Period

Papers reaching the second round of reviewing will be given an opportunity to write a rebuttal to reviewer questions. The rebuttal period will be interactive, and is separate from the meta-review rebuttal given to accepted papers. Authors have the opportunity to exchange messages with the reviewers and respond to questions asked. To this end, we will use HotCRP’s anonymous communication feature to enable a communication channel between authors and reviewers. The authors should mainly focus on factual errors in the reviews and concrete questions posed by the reviewers. New research results can also be discussed if they help to clarify open questions. More instructions will be sent out to the authors at the beginning of the rebuttal period.

Resubmission of Rejected Papers

As with previous IEEE S&P symposia with multiple submission cycles, rejected papers must wait one year before resubmission to IEEE S&P. Given the move from three submission deadlines in 2024 to two submission deadlines in 2025, rejected papers are eligible to submit according to the table below.

2024 deadlines Reject decision
Eligible 2025 deadlines
First 2024
(April 13, 2023)
Either 2025 deadline
Second 2024
(August 3, 2023)
Either 2025 deadline
Third 2024
(Dec 6, 2023)
Second deadline
(Nov 14, 2024)

Instructions for Paper Submission

These instructions apply to both the research papers and systematization of knowledge (SoK) papers. All submissions must be original work; the submitter must clearly document any overlap with previously published or simultaneously submitted papers from any of the authors. Failure to point out and explain overlap will be grounds for rejection. Simultaneous submission of the same paper to another venue with proceedings or a journal is not allowed and will be grounds for automatic rejection. Contact the program committee chairs if there are questions about this policy.

Anonymous Submission

Papers must be submitted in a form suitable for anonymous review: no author names or affiliations may appear on the title page, and papers should avoid revealing authors’ identity in the text. When referring to their previous work, authors are required to cite their papers in the third person, without identifying themselves. In the unusual case in which a third-person reference is infeasible, authors can blind the reference itself. Papers that are not properly anonymized may be rejected without review. PC members who have a genuine conflict of interest with a paper, including the PC Co-Chairs and the Associate Chairs, will be excluded from evaluation and discussion of that paper.

While a paper is under submission to the IEEE Security & Privacy Symposium, authors may choose to give talks about their work, post a preprint of the paper to an archival repository such as arXiv, and disclose security vulnerabilities to vendors. Authors should refrain from widely advertising their results, but in special circumstances they should contact the PC chairs to discuss exceptions. Authors are not allowed to directly contact PC members to discuss their submission.

The submissions will be treated confidentially by the PC chairs and the program committee members. Program committee members are not allowed to share the submitted papers with anyone, with the exception of qualified external reviewers approved by the program committee chairs. Please contact the PC chairs if you have any questions or concerns.

Conflicts of Interest

During submission of a research paper, the submission site will request information about conflicts of interest of the paper’s authors with program committee (PC) members. It is the full responsibility of all authors of a paper to identify all and only their potential conflict-of-interest PC members, according to the following definition. A paper author has a conflict of interest with a PC member when and only when one or more of the following conditions holds:

  1. The PC member is a co-author of the paper.

  2. The PC member has been a co-worker in the same company or university within the past two years.
    • For student interns, the student is conflicted with their supervisors and with members of the same research group. If the student no longer works for the organization, then they are not conflicted with a PC member from the larger organization.
  3. The PC member has been a collaborator within the past two years.
  4. The PC member is or was the author’s primary thesis advisor, no matter how long ago.
  5. The author is or was the PC member’s primary thesis advisor, no matter how long ago.
  6. The PC member is a relative or close personal friend of the author.

For any other situation where the authors feel they have a conflict with a PC member, they must explain the nature of the conflict to the PC chairs, who will mark the conflict if appropriate. The program chairs will review declared conflicts. Papers with incorrect or incomplete conflict of interest information as of the submission closing time are subject to immediate rejection.

Research Ethics Committee

Similar to 2024, IEEE S&P 2025 has a research ethics committee (REC) that will check papers flagged by reviewers as potentially including ethically fraught research. The REC will review flagged papers and may suggest to the PC Chairs rejection of a paper on ethical grounds. The REC consists of members of the PC. Authors are encouraged to review the Menlo Report for general ethical guidelines for computer and information security research.

Ethical Considerations for Vulnerability Disclosure

Where research identifies a vulnerability (e.g., software vulnerabilities in a given program, design weaknesses in a hardware system, or any other kind of vulnerability in deployed systems), we expect that researchers act in a way that avoids gratuitous harm to affected users and, where possible, affirmatively protects those users. In nearly every case, disclosing the vulnerability to vendors of affected systems, and other stakeholders, will help protect users. It is the committee’s sense that a disclosure window of 45 days https://vuls.cert.org/confluence/display/Wiki/Vulnerability+Disclosure+Policy to 90 days https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/p/vulnerability-disclosure-faq.html ahead of publication is consistent with authors’ ethical obligations.

Longer disclosure windows (which may keep vulnerabilities from the public for extended periods of time) should only be considered in exceptional situations, e.g., if the affected parties have provided convincing evidence the vulnerabilities were previously unknown and the full rollout of mitigations requires additional time. The authors are encouraged to consult with the PC chairs in case of questions or concerns.

The version of the paper submitted for review must discuss in detail the steps the authors have taken or plan to take to address these vulnerabilities; but, consistent with the timelines above, the authors do not have to disclose vulnerabilities ahead of submission. If a paper raises significant ethical and/or legal concerns, it will be checked by the REC and it might be rejected based on these concerns. The PC chairs will be happy to consult with authors about how this policy applies to their submissions.

Note: Submitted papers should not include full CVE identifiers in order to preserve the anonymity of the submission.

Ethical Considerations for Human Subjects Research

Submissions that describe experiments that could be viewed as involving human subjects, that analyze data derived from human subjects (even anonymized data), or that otherwise may put humans at risk should:

  1. Disclose whether the research received an approval or waiver from each of the authors’ institutional ethics review boards (IRB) if applicable.
  2. Discuss steps taken to ensure that participants and others who might have been affected by an experiment were treated ethically and with respect.

If a submission deals with any kind of personal identifiable information (PII) or other kinds of sensitive data, the version of the paper submitted for review must discuss in detail the steps the authors have taken to mitigate harms to the persons identified. If a paper raises significant ethical and/or legal concerns, it will be checked by the REC and it might be rejected based on these concerns. The PC chairs will be happy to consult with authors about how this policy applies to their submissions.

Financial and Non-financial competing interests

In the interests of transparency and to help readers form their own judgements of potential bias, the IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy requires authors and PC members to declare any competing financial and/or non-financial interests in relation to the work described. Authors need to include a disclosure of relevant financial interests in the camera-ready versions of their papers. This includes not just the standard funding lines, but should also include disclosures of any financial interest related to the research described. For example, “Author X is on the Technical Advisory Board of the ByteCoin Foundation,” or “Professor Y is the CTO of DoubleDefense, which specializes in malware analysis.” More information regarding this policy is available here.

Page Limit and Formatting (Important Changes)

Submitted papers may include up to 13 pages of text and up to 5 pages for references and appendices, totaling no more than 18 pages. All text and figures past page 13 must be clearly marked as part of the appendix. The final camera-ready paper must be no more than 18 pages, although, at the PC chairs’ discretion, additional pages may be allowed. Reviewers are not required to read appendices.

Papers must be formatted for US letter (not A4) size paper. All submissions must use the IEEE “compsoc” conference proceedings template. LaTeX submissions using the IEEE templates must use IEEEtran.cls version 1.8b with options “conference,compsoc.” (That is, begin your LaTeX document with the line \documentclass[conference,compsoc]{IEEEtran}.). See the “IEEE Demo Template for Computer Society Conferences” Overleaf template for an example. We are not aware of an MS Word template that matches this style.

Papers that fail to use the “compsoc” template (including using the non-compsoc IEEE conference template), modify margins, font, or line spacing, or use egregious space scrunching are subject to rejection without review. Authors are responsible for verifying the paper format (e.g., compare with the above linked Overleaf template). While HotCRP provides some automated checking, the checks are limited. Note that some LaTeX packages (e.g., \usepackage{usenix}) override the compsoc formatting and must be removed.

Conference Submission Server

Submissions must be in Portable Document Format (.pdf). Authors should pay special attention to unusual fonts, images, and figures that might create problems for reviewers.

Submission server: https://cycle1.sp2025.ieee-security.org/

Publication and Presentation

Authors are responsible for obtaining appropriate publication clearances. One of the authors of the accepted paper is expected to register and present the paper at the conference.

Program Committee

PC Chairs

William Enck North Carolina State University
Cristina Nita-Rotaru Northeastern University

Associate Chairs

Adwait Nadkarni William & Mary
Alex Kapravelos North Carolina State University
Amir Houmansadr University of Massachusetts Amherst
Batista Biggio University of Cagliari
Christina Garman Purdue University
Ian Miers University of Maryland, College Park
Ioana Boureanu Univ. of Surrey, Surrey Centre for Cybersecurity
Sara Rampazzi University of Florida
Sascha Fahl CISPA
William Robertson Northeastern University

REC Chairs

René Mayrhofer Johannes Kepler University Linz
Blase Ur University of Chicago

PC Members

Adam Bates University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Adam Doupé Arizona State University
Adam Oest Amazon
Adil Ahmad Arizona State University
Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi Technical University Darmstadt
Alena Naiakshina Ruhr University Bochum
Alesia Chernikova Northeastern University
Alessandro Brighente University of Padova
Alexander Block Georgetown University & University of Maryland
Alexandra Dmitrienko University of Wuerzburg
Alexios Voulimeneas TU Delft
Ali Abbasi CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security
Álvaro Feal Northeastern University
Amit Seal Ami William & Mary
Ana-Maria Cretu EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Andrei Sabelfeld Chalmers University of Technology
Andrew Kwong UNC Chapel Hill
Andrew Paverd Microsoft
Ang Chen University of Michigan
Angelos Stavrou Virginia Tech
Aniket Kate Purdue University / Supra Research
Antonio Bianchi Purdue University
Anupam Das North Carolina State University
Anwar Hithnawi ETH Zurich
Aravind Machiry Purdue University
Arslan Khan Pennsylvania State University/ Purdue University
Arthur Gervais UCL
Ashish Kundu Cisco Research
Bailey Kacsmar University of Alberta
Ben Stock CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security
Ben Weintraub Northeastern University
Ben Zhao University of Chicago
Benjamin Beurdouche Mozilla
Blaine Hoak University of Wisconsin-Madison
Bo Chen Michigan Technological University
Bogdan Carbunar Florida International University
Brad Reaves North Carolina State University
Brendan Saltaformaggio Georgia Institute of Technology
Byoungyoung Lee Seoul National University
Chao Zhang Tsinghua University
Charalampos Papamanthou Yale University
Chen-Da Liu-Zhang Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts & Web3 Foundation
Christof Ferreira Torres ETH Zürich
Christopher A. Choquette-Choo Google DeepMind
Claudio Soriente NEC Laboratories Europe
Constantin Catalin Dragan University of Surrey
Daniel Genkin Georgia Tech
Daniel Votipka Tufts University
Daniele Cono D'Elia Sapienza University of Rome
David Balash University of Richmond
Debajyoti Das KU Leuven
Deian Stefan UC San Diego
Dimitrios Papadopoulos HKUST
Diogo Barradas University of Waterloo
Dominik Wermke NC State
Dongdong She Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Duc Le Visa Research
Earlence Fernandes UC San Diego
Eleonora Losiouk University of Padua
Elisa Bertino Purdue University
Emiliano De Cristofaro UC Riverside
Emily Wenger Duke University
Endadul Hoque Syracuse University
Eric Pauley University of Wisconsin–Madison
Eysa Lee Brown University
Fabio De Gaspari Sapienza Università di Roma
Faysal hossain Shezan University of Texas at Arlington
Fengwei Zhang Southern University of Science and Technology
Florian Kerschbaum University of Waterloo
Florian Tramer ETH Zurich
Frank Li Georgia Institute of Technology
Frank Piessens KU Leuven
Gang Wang University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Gaoning Pan Hangzhou Dianzi University
Georgios Smaragdakis Delft University of Technology
Giovanni Camurati ETH Zurich
Giovanni Cherubin Microsoft
Giulia Fanti Carnegie Mellon University
Giuseppe Ateniese George Mason University
Guangdong Bai The University of Queensland
Guangliang Yang Fudan University
Guanhong Tao University of Utah
Guevara Noubir Northeastern University
Guillermo Suarez-Tangil IMDEA Networks Institute
Habiba Farrukh University of California, Irvine
Haoyu Wang Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Harshad Sathaye ETH Zürich
Haya Schulmann Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Heather Zheng University of Chicago
Heng Yin UC Riverside
Homa Alemzadeh University of Virginia
Hongxin Hu University at Buffalo
Hyungsub Kim Purdue University & Indiana University
Imtiaz Karim Purdue University
Jack Doerner Brown University
Jaron Mink Arizona State University
Jason Nieh Columbia University
Jason (Minhui) Xue CSIRO’s Data61
Jeremiah Blocki Purdue University
Jiarong Xing Rice University
Jiska Classen Hasso Plattner Institute
Jon McCune Google
Jonas Hielscher Ruhr University Bochum
Joseph Bonneau a16z crypto research and New York University
Jun Han KAIST
Kaihua Qin Yale University
Kelsey Fulton Colorado School of Mines
Kevin Borgolte Ruhr University Bochum
Kevin Butler University of Florida
Klaus v. Gleissenthall VU Amsterdam
Kun Sun George Mason University
Lorenzo Cavallaro University College London
Lucianna Kiffer ETH Zurich
Lucy Simko Barnard College
Luyi Xing Indiana University Bloomington
Man-Ki Yoon North Carolina State University
Marco Squarcina TU Wien
Maria Apostolaki Princeton University
Marina Blanton University at Buffalo
Markus Miettinen Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences
Martin Henze RWTH Aachen University & Fraunhofer FKIE
Matthew Jones Block
Matthew Lentz Duke University and Broadcom
Mauro Conti University of Padua
Meera Sridhar University of North Carolina Charlotte
Meng Shen Beijing Institute of Technology
Michael Waidner Technische Universität Darmstadt
Mohammad Islam University of Texas at Arlington
Mridula Singh CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security
Mu Zhang University of Utah
Mulong Luo The University of Texas at Austin
Muoi Tran ETH Zurich
Murtuza Jadliwala University of Texas at San Antonio
Muslum Ozgur Ozmen Arizona State University
Nils Lukas University of Waterloo
Ning Zhang Washington University in St. Louis
Nuno Santos INESC-ID and Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon
Omar Chowdhury Stony Brook University
Peng Gao Virginia Tech
Pramod Bhatotia TU Munich
Pratik Sarkar Supra Research
Pratyush Mishra University of Pennsylvania
Qi Li Tsinghua University
Qiang Tang The University of Sydney
Qiben Yan Michigan State University
Qingkai Shi Nanjing University
Quinn Burke University of Wisconsin-Madison
Rahul Chatterjee University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ram Sundara Raman University of Michigan
Ramya Jayaram Masti Ampere Computing
Rei Safavi-Naini University of Calgary
Ryan Sheatsley University of Wisconsin-Madison
Saba Eskandarian University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Saman Zonouz Georgia Tech
Samira Mirbagher Ajorpaz North Carolina State University
Sathvik Prasad North Carolina State University
Sazzadur Rahaman University of Arizona
Sen Chen Tianjin University
Seyedhamed Ghavamnia University of Connecticut
Sherman S. M. Chow The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Shih-Wei Li National Taiwan University
Shitong Zhu Meta Platforms Inc.
Shuai Wang Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Siqi Ma The University of New South Wales
Sisi Duan Tsinghua University
Soheil Khodayari CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security
Song Li Zhejiang University
Srdjan Capkun ETH Zurich
Sri AravindaKrishnan Thyagarajan University of Sydney
Stephen Herwig William & Mary
Sunil Manandhar IBM Research
Sven Bugiel CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security
Swarn Priya Virginia Tech
Syed Rafiul Hussain Pennsylvania State University
Tapti Palit Purdue University
Teodora Baluta National University of Singapore
Tianhao Wang University of Virginia
Tobias Fiebig MPI-INF
Trent Jaeger UC Riverside
Tushar Jois City College of New York
VARUN CHANDRASEKARAN University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Varun Madathil Yale University
Wajih Ul Hassan The University of Virginia
Weijia He Dartmouth College
Wenjing Lou Virginia Tech
Xiaojing Liao Indiana University Bloomington
Xinda Wang University of Texas at Dallas
Xingliang Yuan The University of Melbourne
Xinyu Xing Northwestern University
Xusheng Xiao Arizona State University
Yan Chen Northwestern University
Yan Shoshitaishvili Arizona State University
Yanchao Zhang Arizona State University
Yaxing Yao Virginia Tech
Yigitcan Kaya UC Santa Barbara
Yingying Chen Rutgers University
Yinxi Liu Rochester Institute of Technology
Yinzhi Cao Johns Hopkins University
Yizheng Chen University of Maryland
Yonghwi Kwon University of Maryland
Yossi Oren Ben-Gurion University, Israel
Yu Ding Google DeepMind
Yuan Tian UCLA
Yupeng Zhang University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
Yuseok Jeon Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)
Yuval Yarom Ruhr University Bochum
Yuzhe Tang Syracuse University
Z. Berkay Celik Purdue University
Zane Ma Oregon State University
Zhiqiang Lin Ohio State University
Zhiyun Qian University of California, Riverside
Zhou Li University of California, Irvine
Zhuotao Liu Tsinghua University
Ziming Zhao University at Buffalo
Ziqi Yang Zhejiang University