Call for Contributions


The Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS) is the leading forum for interdisciplinary scholarship on information security and privacy, combining expertise from the fields of economics, social science, business, law, policy, and computer science. 

Prior workshops have explored the role of incentives between attackers and defenders of information systems, identified market failures surrounding internet security, quantified cybercrime costs and risks of personal data disclosure, and assessed investments in cyber-defense. The 2023 workshop will build on past efforts using empirical and analytic tools not only to understand threats, but also to strengthen security and privacy through novel evaluations of available solutions.

Topics of interest

We encourage economists, computer scientists, legal scholars, business school researchers, security and privacy specialists, as well as industry experts to submit their research and participate by attending the workshop. Suggested topics include (but are not limited to) empirical and theoretical studies of:

  • Special topics of interest
    • Digital sovereignty
    • Cyberwar and cyber peace
    • International law and regulations in the cyberspace
  • Investment in information security
    • Vulnerability discovery, disclosure, and patching
    • Incentives for and against pervasive monitoring threats
    • Cyber-risk quantification
    • Cyber-insurance
  • Economics and governance of privacy
    • Economics of privacy and anonymity
    • Behavioral security and privacy
    • Data privacy and policy
  • Cybercrime
    • Models and analysis of online crime (including botnets, ransomware, and underground markets)
    • Analysis of costs of cybercrime and impacts of counter-measures
  • Cybersecurity policy
    • Security standards and regulation
    • Incentives for information sharing and cooperation
    • Cyber-defense strategy
    • Geopolitical and international relations aspects of cybersecurity, including cyberterrorism
    • Digital sovereignty

Because it will be held at the heart of International Geneva, WEIS 2023 will specifically welcome contributions to digital sovereignty, cyberwar, cyberpeace, international law and regulations.

WEIS 2023 is co-hosted by the University of Geneva and United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)

Submission

Submitted manuscripts should represent significant and novel research contributions. WEIS has no formal discipline or formatting guidelines. Previous contributors spanned fields from economics and psychology to computer science and law, each with different norms and expectations about manuscript length and formatting.

All paper manuscripts will have to be submitted in anonymized form for double-blind review. (See https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/6/228027-effectiveness-of-anonymization-in-double-blind-review/abstract for arguments substantiating this requirement.)

To that effect:

  • The title page should not contain any author names or affiliations.
  • Authors should carefully review figures and appendices (especially survey instruments) to ensure affiliations are not accidentally included.
  • When referring to your previous work, do so in the third person, as though it were written by someone else. Only blind the reference itself in the (unusual) case that a third-person reference is infeasible.
  • Authors may include links to websites that contain source code, tools, or other supplemental material. Neither the link in the paper nor the website or any of the materials therein may contain the authors’ names and affiliations.

Papers that are not properly anonymized may be rejected without review.

While submitted papers must be anonymous, authors may choose to give talks about their work, post a preprint of the paper online, disclose security vulnerabilities to vendors or the public, etc. during the review process.

Papers should be submitted through the submission server.

Special Call for Hackathon Challenges

In addition to the annual workshop, we are working on organizing a special hackathon session for the first time where interested stakeholders from the academia, public and private sectors will meet to identify current information security and privacy challenges and co-create innovative ideas and solutions across research disciplines and sectors. A special call for challenges is open for the Hackathon on Digital Sovereignty, jointly organized in the Geneva Area on July 7-8, between WEIS and PETs. All academics, international, public, and private organizations are welcome to submit an emerging challenge or societal issue relevant for the WEIS community. See below for important dates.

Your proposal (1-2 pages) should be uploaded in the PDF format and include the following details: submitter’s name, the context and brief description of the proposed challenge, (optionally) the broad concept for solving it, targeted audience, resources or skill sets required. You may include any data relevant for your proposal using a link to an external web hosting platform of your choice. Proposals for the Hackathon should be submitted through the submission server and marked as “Hackathon challenge” in the submission type field.

Important Dates

Submission system opens : December 15, 2022

Submission deadline (for papers) : February 28, 2023 March 5, 2023 (11:59pm EST)

Submission deadline (for hack challenges) : March 31st, 2023

Notification of acceptance : May 15, 2023

Final papers due (revisions) : June 10, 2023

Workshop dates : July 5-7, 2023

Hackathon dates : July 7-8, 2023