worm blog

CFP: 2006 Workshop on Rapid Malcode (WORM06)

WORM06 is just around the bend (well, later this year, but the CFP closes next month). I have been remiss in posting this ...

Internet-wide infectious epidemics have emerged as one of the leading threats to information security and service availability. Self-propagating threats, generally termed 'worms', exploit software weaknesses, hardware limitations, Internet topology, and the open Internet communication model to compromise large numbers of networked systems. Internet worms are increasingly being used as delivery mechanisms for malicious payloads such as spyware, phishing servers, spam relays, and information espionage. Unfortunately, current operational practices still face significant challenges in containing these threats as evidenced by the rise in automated botnet networks and the continued presence of worms released years ago.

This workshop provides a forum for exchanging ideas, increasing understanding, and relating experiences on self-propagating malicious software from a wide range of communities, including academia, industry, and the government. We are soliciting papers from researchers and practitioners on subjects including, but not limited to:

• Automatic worm detection and characterization
• Reactive countermeasures
• Proactive defenses
• Detecting and disrupting botnets and malware command and control
• Threat assessment
• New threats and related challenges
• Measurement studies
• Testbeds & evaluation
• Reverse engineering
• Significant operational experiences
• Analysis of worm/botnet construction, current & future
• Modeling and analysis of propagation dynamics
• Forensic methods of attribution

WORM aims to be a true workshop, with a primary goal of fostering the development of preliminary work and helping nucleate a worm-research community.

WORM is also soliciting proposals for a discussion panel on a topic relevant to the workshop. Panel proposals must include the title of the panel, an abstract describing the topic and why it should be of interest to the WORM community, and a list of potential panelists. Panels are expected to be at most 1 hour long, comprised of short presentations by the panelists followed by discussion among panel members and the audience; other formats may be used, but should be described in the proposal.

Papers must be received by 23:59:59 (EDT) of June 16^th, 2006. Reviews of submissions and notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to the authors no later than August 9^th, 2006, and, for papers to appear in the WORM Proceedings, authors will have an opportunity to revise their work by August 21^st, 2006.

Information site: The 4th Workshop on Recurring Malcode (WORM).
Event details: November 3rd, 2006, held (as always) at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.

I plan on attending, and if any of you would like to talk to me about getting a panel together with me, that'd be great. Of course, you can submit a panel proposal on your own, too.

What the heck?

What the heck? Why did this blog get so quiet all of a sudden?

I'm exhausted, working more than I have in recent years, lots of hours every day and simply hit burnout phase. Wormblog was one of the causualities. I'll be posting again, but right now I'm travelling. Keep your eyes peeled and thanks for your patience.

-- jose