The 7th International Workshop on Criminal Use of Information Hiding
to be held in conjunction with the 18th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security
(ARES 2023 – http://www.ares-conference.eu)
August 29 – September 01, 2023
With the constant rise of the number of Internet users, available bandwidth and an increasing number of services shifting into the connected world, criminals are increasingly active in the virtual world. With improving defensive methods cybercriminals have to utilize more and more sophisticated ways to perform their malicious activities. While protecting the privacy of users, many technologies used in current malware and network attacks have been abused in order to allow criminals to carry out their activities undetected. This poses a lot of new challenges for digital forensics analysts, academics, law enforcement agencies (LEAs), and security professionals.
The aim of the International Workshop on Criminal Use of Information Hiding (CUIng) is to bring together researchers, practitioners, law enforcement representatives, and security professionals in the area of analysis of information hiding. However data hiding is understood here in a wider manner than in the academic world i.e. all techniques that pertain to camouflaging/masking/hiding various types of data (e.g. identities, behavior, communication, etc.) are included here. This means not only digital steganography/covert channels but also obfuscation/anti-forensics techniques and even underground networks (darknets) or activities related to behavior impersonation or mimicking. This will allow to present a more complete picture on novel research regarding the use of data and communication hiding methods in criminal environments and discuss ideas for fighting misuse of privacy enhancing technologies.
Moreover, this year the CUING workshop is co-organized together with the SIMARGL (Secure Intelligent Methods for Advanced RecoGnition of malware and stegomalware) and DISSIMILAR (Detection of fake newS on SocIal MedIa pLAtfoRms) projects.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to
Information hiding techniques
Studies regarding the use of information hiding in cybercrime
Analysis of cybercrime cases related to CUIng
Large scale coordinated actions by LEAs from CUIng perspective
New steganographic & steganalysis methods
Local, air-gapped, and network covert channels
Side channels and less obvious usage of information hiding techniques
Novel countermeasures against information hiding techniques: detection, prevention, limitation
Evasion, obfuscation and anti-forensics techniques used by cybercriminals
Traffic type obfuscation techniques e.g. traffic morphing
Masking network attacks with another types of threats
Hiding covert communication within network attacks e.g. DDoS, SPAM, etc.
Impersonation of one cybercriminals groups by the other
Underground marketplaces and their business models
Botnet analysis from CUIng perspective
Methods for botnet detection and mitigation from CUIng perspective
Banking Trojans from CUIng perspective
IoT-botnets from CUIng perspective
Privacy enhancing techniques
Analysis of underground environments
Legal and technical aspects of Darknet research
Cybercrime and CPS from CUIng perspective
Future scenarios in cybercrime from CUIng perspective
Aspects and methods for sharing strategic intelligence
Abusing legitimate cloud-based services for masking criminal activities
Abusing legitimate social media services for masking criminal activities
Important Dates
| Submission Deadline | May 22, 2023 |
| Author Notification | June 14, 2023 |
| Proceedings Version (100% submitted to TAPS) | June 28, 2023 (AoE) |
| ARES EU Symposium | August 29, 2023 |
| ARES Conference | August 29 – September 01, 2023 |
Workshop Chairs
Wojciech Mazurczyk
Warsaw University of Technology, Poland
wojciech.mazurczyk@pw.edu.pl
Philipp Amann
Europol, European Cybercrime Centre, The Netherlands
Philipp.Amann@europol.europa.eu
Jart Armin
CyberDefcon, The Netherlands
jart@cyberdefcon.com
Angelo Consoli
Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana (SUPSI), Switzerland
angelo.consoli@supsi.ch
Peter Kieseberg
FH St. Pölten, Austria
Peter.Kieseberg@fhstp.ac.at
Joerg Keller
FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany
Joerg.Keller@fernuni-hagen.de
TECHNICAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE 2023
tentative
Submission Guidelines
The submission guidelines valid for the workshop are the same as for the ARES conference. They can be found at https://www.ares-conference.eu/conference/submission/.
Moreover, the extended versions of all accepted papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Cyber Security and Mobility (Indexed in Scopus, http://riverpublishers.com/journal.php?j=JCSM/5/1/jdes).