NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence invites the submission of abstracts for the 15th International Conference on Cyber Conflict (CyCon 2023), to be held from 30 May to 2 June 2023 in Tallinn, Estonia. The Call for Papers is open until 15 October 2022.

CyCon 2023’s central theme is Meeting Reality. It seeks to challenge our assumptions about cyber conflict and associated technologies in general, in addition to their role in peacetime as well as crisis and conflict. Do our policies and legal frameworks stand the test of time? What technologies have turned out to be game changers and which have been overrated? CyCon 2023 encourages the discussion of concepts of cyber conflict as tested by real world events, addressing questions that might have appeared niche and theoretical just a few years ago, but now have proven to be of real life significance.

We especially welcome papers addressing topics such as:
• Cyber effects in multi-domain operations and in conflict
(concepts/tactics/characteristics/legal implications)
• National cyber strategies and policies in/for armed conflict
• Private companies as the providers of cyber infrastructure and protection
• Non-state actors - volunteers, hacktivists and cyber partisans
• Legal aspects of cyber recruitment
• Biometric data processing for identification or targeting purposes
• Use of drones (for combat or surveillance)
• Technical, strategic and/or legal questions related to the deployment of autonomous
capabilities
• Cyber training needs before and during armed conflict
• Military (cyber) exercises
• Narrative control in/through cyberspace
• Information and intelligence sharing
• International law aspects of propaganda and influence operations
• (Cyber) neutrality in a globalized world
• (Cyber) cooperation vs competition between Russia and China
• Critical infrastructure security
- Cybersecurity of industrial control systems
- Secured 5G and next generation networks
- Cybersecurity aspects of transport industry (maritime, aviation, railroad)
- Satellite communication security
• AI use-cases in cybersecurity
- AI-based intrusion detection systems
- Secured AI military applications
- AI-based malware detection and analysis
• Novel cyber-attacks and malware analysis in the context of Russo-Ukrainian conflict

Important Dates:
Abstract submission: 15 October 2022
Notification of abstract acceptance: 24 October 2022
Full paper submission: 8 January 2023
Author notification: 8 February 2023
Final paper submission: 8 March 2023

Publication
Authors are asked to submit a 200-300-word abstract of the planned paper, which should describe the topic and set out the main aspects and structure of the study. After a preliminary review, the authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit full papers. Only original research papers that have not been previously published will be admitted for review. Authors must specify CyCon conference track they are submitting their paper to: legal, strategy/policy, or technology. In case of doubt, consult CCDCOE in advance. The full submissions should have between 4000 and 6000 words, including abstract, footnotes, captions and references. Exceptions exceeding the maximum word count by more than 10% require prior consent by CCDCOE. Submitted papers will be subject to a double-blind review. The conference proceedings are published under IEEE technical sponsorship.

The full text of the call including submission instructions is available at https://ccdcoe.org/uploads/2022/08/Cycon2023/CyCon_2023_CFP.pdf