The 7th International Conference on Cyber Conflict 2015 (CyCon 2015) is an annual NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (NATO CCD COE) event, conducted in technical cooperation with the IEEE Estonia Section. CyCon 2015 will focus on ‘Architectures in Cyberspace’ and for second time in the history of CyCon, we are pleased to announce the Student Paper Session with Best Student Thesis Awards.

Goal of the Student Paper Session
We are seeking novel and previously unpublished short paper which would provide an overview of a recent Master thesis in the field of cyber security. Students from various disciplines such as computer sciences, law and political sciences are invited to participate. Submissions will be evaluated based on their originality and significance to the conference’s theme “Architectures in Cyberspace”.
The program committee will accept the best 3 submissions to be presented during CyCon, where the awards will be given. Universities of accepted candidates are highly encouraged to support their students to participate in this student session.

Student Awards
The awards comprise of a free conference pass for all invited candidates and the following cash prizes for the top three student papers:
1st place: 1000 Euro
2nd place: 600 Euro
3rd place: 400 Euro
Eligibility Criteria
People who have graduated from Master Degree programs no earlier than 01 January 2014.

Candidates must submit the following:
1) Short paper of the thesis in maximum 2500 words written in English
2) Published thesis or dissertation
3) Signed recommendation letter from the university/thesis advisor
4) Curriculum Vitae

All documents should be sent as PDF files to cfp@ccdcoe.org referring to “STUDENT AWARD SUBMISSION” as the email’s subject. By submitting their work, authors accept and give permission for their papers to be published by NATO CCD COE.

Important Dates
Submission Deadline: 27 March 2015
Notification of Acceptance: 30 April 2015


Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
International cooperation – International relations
 Norms development (international treaties, legal framework, etc.)
 Governance (e.g. the role of states, IOs, NGOs, technical boards, ISPs, etc.)
 Borders in cyberspace (e.g. territoriality, sovereignty, technical implementation of borders and boundaries, etc.)
 Cyber world order (e.g. virtual multilateralism, new communities, etc.)

Technical challenges/requirements
 Cryptographic dogma? (e.g. key security, strength of algorithms, etc.)
 Future Connectivity and the Internet of Things (e.g. net neutrality, future backbone, new network technologies, etc.)
 Big data (e.g. big data management, interpretation and evaluation, etc.)
 Technical protocols (e.g. IPv6, 5G, WWW 3.0, etc.)
 Operating systems (e.g. multi-core / virtual-core, distributed OS, etc.)

Conflict in Cyberspace
 Development and engagement of cyber assets (e.g. enforcement, military capacities, research and education, etc.)
 Doctrine and strategies (e.g. state actors in cyberspace, cyber policy, etc.)
 Prevention (e.g. early warning, confidence building measures, etc.)
 Crisis management (e.g. contingency planning, resilience)

Regulation – standards
 Privacy and personal data protection (e.g. profiling, “right to be forgotten”, etc.)
 Security strategies (e.g. implementation frameworks, metrics, etc.)
 Technical implementation standards (e.g. RFCs, IEEE, ISO, etc.)
 Intellectual property (e.g. copyright and digital rights management, etc.)
 Legal developments (e.g. public international law, “Tallinn Manual 2.0”, “cyber crime act”, etc.)

Virtualisation
 Social networks and Online Communities (e.g. social network merging, “blog wars”, etc.)
 Digital economy (e.g. E-Commerce, automated trade, etc.)
 Identities (e.g. “virtual me”, E-IDs, avatars, etc.)
 Health (e.g. quantified self, etc.)
 Politics (e.g. citizenship, revolutions, democracy, etc.)
 Knowledge – culture (e.g. contents vs container, creative industries, education (MOOCs), etc.)
 Technical aspects of virtualisation (e.g. cloud computing, VM security, etc.)