FloCon 2013, a network security conference, takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 7–10, 2013. This open conference provides a forum for operational network analysts, tool developers, researchers, and other parties interested in the analysis of large volumes of traffic to showcase the next generation of flow-based analysis techniques.

Flow is an abstraction of network traffic in which packets are aggregated by common attributes over time. This year's conference will focus on the challenges of "Analysis at Scale." In large network environments, flow data helps to provide a scalable way of seeing the big picture, as well as a streamlined platform for highlighting patterns of malicious behavior over time.

More and more commercial tools and platforms are available for collecting and storing not only flow data, but large volumes of other data such as DNS information, packet capture, security logs, and incident reports. How do we refine this "Big Data" into knowledge? How do we design methods for aggregated analyses at the network edge? How do we build systems for monitoring thousands or millions of assets at once?

The era of Big Data has brought with it the need to integrate cross-disciplinary expertise—in numerical methods, system design, software engineering, visualization, and analytical thinking—with the goal of gaining awareness and insight from raw records. Analysis of Big Data at the ISP and carrier-class network level adds challenges of data abstraction, context, and scope that must be addressed with the implementation of any system designed to help operational analysts use this data to learn about network threats.
Call for Papers

We are accepting abstracts for presentations, posters, and demonstrations for network analysis with an eye toward applications and adaptations for analysis at scale. Topics of interest include

Measurement and metrics
Discovering and evaluating indicators of malicious behavior
Automated analysis
Flow collection technology
Augmenting and annotating flow data
Integrating data sources
Optimizing analyst workflow
Scalable statistical techniques
Data visualization for operational environments and reporting
Case studies in threat detection and mitigation
Data fusion
New techniques from new data sources

Presentations should be prepared for a technical audience; presenters are allotted 30 minutes, including time for questions. There is also an option to submit academic posters that highlight novel techniques and early results from new directions. The demonstration session provides an opportunity for informal interaction with the community and a forum to display new technology and new platforms. There will be a dedicated session and room for demonstrations and posters. The demonstrations can take place throughout the sessions, as the attendees move about the room.

Since the workshop is intended to be highly interactive, presenters and demonstrators must have enough experience and in-depth knowledge about flow analysis to address questions from other attendees.

Presentations and posters will be selected by the program committee based on a blind review against established selection criteria. Demonstration slots will be assigned first to FloCon 2013 sponsors; remaining slots will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. A limited number of registration fee discounts are available to students who present or demonstrate relevant flow-related research. To submit an abstract, please use our online Call for Presentations Submission Form,https://events.capsllc.net/flocon/submissions .