We invite contributions in five categories: research papers, presentation proposals, panel proposals, workshop proposals, and demo proposals.

RESEARCH PAPERS undergo double-blinded, peer review, and are published by Elsevier in a special issue of Digital Investigation. Papers are due via EasyChair on January 25, 2019. Read the Submission Criteria for more information. 

PRESENTATIONS and WORKSHOPS undergo a light review process to select presentations of maximal interest to DFRWS attendees, and filter out sales pitches. Presentations are of 20 minute duration and are delivered alongside academic papers in the main conference. Workshops occur before and after the main conference. These are intended as in-depth and practical learning opportunities for attendees and often include hands-on participation by attendees. Workshop proposals must specify their target length of either 2 or 4 hours. DFRWS will provide one free conference registration for each workshop accepted. PDFs of proposals are due via email by March 19, 2019.

POSTERS and DEMOS are accepted through the first day of the conference, which is when the Poster and Demo session occurs. Poster authors have the option of having an abstract included in the printed proceedings. A PDF of the poster and the proposed abstract must be submitted via email by March 19, 2019.

Student award and student scholarship program

DFRWS continues its outreach to students studying digital forensics. DFRWS and its sponsors will award one scholarship to the Best Student Paper awardee -- it will include registration, 4 nights hotel at the conference hotel, and a monetary award of $595. One or more Student Travel Scholarships may be awarded to include registration and 4 nights at the conference hotel, depending on sponsorship funding each year. DFRWS will notify the recipient of the Best Student Research Paper award on or before the conference registration deadline. Other awards (e.g. industry sponsored awards for research in specific topic areas) may be awarded after the registration deadline and are fully contingent on scholarship sponsorship by industry each year. Refer to the Student Scholarships page for additional information on eligibility requirements, selection criteria, and award schedule and administration.

Topics of Interest

• Memory analysis and snapshot acquisition
• Storage forensics, including solid state
• "Big data" forensics, related to collection, analysis, and visualization
• Incident response and live analysis
• Forensics of cloud and virtualized environments
• Malware and targeted attacks (analysis and attribution)
• Network and distributed system forensics
• Event reconstruction methods and tools
• Mobile and embedded device forensics
• Digital evidence storage and preservation
• Data recovery and reconstruction
• Multimedia analysis
• Database forensics
• Tool testing and development
• Digital evidence and the law
• Case studies and trend reports
• Data hiding and discovery
• Anti-forensics and anti-anti-forensics
• Interpersonal communications and social network analysis
• Non-traditional forensic scenarios and approaches (e.g. vehicles, Internet of Things, industrial control systems, and SCADA)
• Archival preservation & reconstruction

The above list is only suggestive. We welcome new, original ideas from people in academia, industry, government, and law enforcement who are interested in sharing their results, knowledge, and experience. Authors are encouraged to demonstrate the applicability of their work to practical issues. Questions about submission topics can be sent via email to usa-papers@dfrws.org