The sixth annual DFRWS APAC 2026 will be held from October 19 to 23, 2026 in Singapore. The conference will be a hybrid event, running concurrently with attendees participating in satellite sites within APAC. Note, presenters are expected to be on-site (see PRESENTATION DELIVERY MODE).

Conference Location:

Singapore

Singapore, a global city-state at the heart of Southeast Asia, is a dynamic hub where a rich tapestry of multicultural heritage coexists with cutting-edge innovation and a world-class skyline. As a leading international center for finance, logistics, and technology, it thrives as a vibrant metropolis that attracts talent and visitors from across the globe. With its lush "City in Nature" landscapes, diverse culinary scene, and seamless blend of East and West, Singapore offers a unique and sophisticated experience, making it a premier global destination.

October 19, 2026 to October 23, 2026

Location

DFRWS APAC 2026 will take place at the Police Cantonment Complex (PCC), a pivotal hub for law enforcement and criminal investigation in Singapore. Situated at the gateway of the historic Chinatown and the bustling Central Business District (CBD), the complex houses key departments of the Singapore Police Force, reflecting the city-state’s commitment to security and technological innovation. With its prime location in the Outram district, the venue offers participants a unique professional atmosphere seamlessly integrated with Singapore’s rich cultural heritage and world-class infrastructure. Its proximity to major transport nodes and vibrant urban centers makes it an ideal setting for fostering international collaboration in the field of digital forensics.

❖ Main Conference

Police Cantonment Complex (PCC), 391 New Bridge Rd, #02-101Singapore, Singapore 088762

Keynotes

From Craft to Court: Unifying OSINT as a Forensically Sound Discipline

Mohamed Chahine Ghanem | Associate Professor in Cyber Security | Keele University

Open-source intelligence has become indispensable to digital investigations, yet it remains caught between two worlds. In practice, OSINT is too often an artisanal craft, a virtuoso assembly of bespoke tools, undocumented workflows, and individual tradecraft that rarely survives the scrutiny of a courtroom or the reproducibility demands of peer review. Across the research community, methods proliferate in isolation: every team, tool, and tutorial encodes its own assumptions, with little consensus on what makes an OSINT finding sound, repeatable, or admissible. The result is a discipline rich in capability but poor in standardisation, and that gap now constrains both the evidential weight of investigations and the cumulative progress of research.

This keynote argues that OSINT stands at the same inflection point digital forensics faced two decades ago, when ad hoc practice gave way to validated processes, accepted standards, and defensible methodology. Drawing on lessons from established forensic science, it makes the case for unifying OSINT around a shared framework: common terminology, documented and reproducible workflows, explicit provenance and chain-of-custody for open-source data, tool validation, and transparent treatment of uncertainty and error rates. Such a framework does more than satisfy courts, it creates the shared substrate on which researchers and practitioners can finally build together, turning isolated tradecraft into a science whose findings are comparable, contestable, and cumulative.

The talk closes by setting out an agenda for that unification, the methodological, educational, and community-level steps required to move OSINT from craft to court, and by examining what each stakeholder, from individual analysts to academic researchers to standards bodies, stands to gain when investigative practice and scholarship are finally pulling in the same direction.

About Mohamed Chahine Ghanem:

Dr Mohamed Chahine Ghanem is an Associate Professor and Cyber Security Research Lead at Keele University, and a Visiting Associate Professor in Cyber Security and AI within the School of Computer Science and Informatics at the University of Liverpool. He also holds a senior advisory position in Cyber Resilience within the banking sector. Before joining academia, Dr Ghanem gained over 15 years of industry experience in senior roles across law enforcement and multinational organisations, including Global Director of Cyber Security Auditing at Kroll LLC and Nationwide Building Society. He holds an Engineering Degree in Computer Systems, an MSc in Digital Forensics & IT Security, and a PhD in Cyber Security Engineering from City St George, University of London. Dr Ghanem is a Senior Fellow of the HEA (SFHEA), holds an MA in Academic Practice, and has earned numerous professional certifications, including CISSP, CPCI, multiple GIAC and digital forensics certificates. His research focuses on applied AI for cyber security, and he supervises postgraduate researchers in digital forensics, IoT, offensive cyber security, and applied AI. He has published extensively in leading Q1 journals. Dr Ghanem is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cyber Security and Risk Auditing (Q1), an Editor for ACM Digital Threats: Research and Practice and serves as Guest Editor and Reviewer for leading cybersecurity journals, including IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS) and Elsevier Computers & Security.

Case Closed? How Agents will reshape the Future of Digital Forensics

LIM Tuan Liang | Director (Digital & Information Forensics) | Home Team Science & Technology Agency (HTX)

The "Find Evidence" button may soon become a reality for an examiner whereby activating it unleashes a team of AI agents to do the work. Unlike the current use of AI in Digital Forensics where it is treated as passive analytical tools, agents are active participants that can plan investigative approaches, use forensic tools, coordinate with other agents, and adapt its approach as new evidence emerges. This keynote explores where these agents could impact the digital forensic workflow, such as in evidence triage, cross-device correlation, report drafting, and even suggesting new leads. And where agents (or machines in general) genuinely outperform humans to our benefit: tirelessly processing terabytes of data, spotting patterns across disparate evidence sources, and working around the clock without suffering from fatigue or cognitive bias.

Of course, faster does not always mean better. If an AI agent decides which artifacts are relevant and recommends conclusions to a case, who is ultimately accountable? Can the reasoning provided be properly explained in court by the human witness? How do we validate autonomous work at scale, demonstrate repeatability, or be complete in disclosing the parts that are performed by technology capable of making its own decisions? These questions go beyond technology, challenging some of the fundamental principles and assumptions on which digital forensics and legal admissibility are built.

This presentation takes a practical and forward-looking view of what an agent-enabled future might realistically look like over the next few years. Rather than asking whether AI will replace digital forensic examiners, the more relevant question is what the examiner's role becomes when AI agents can handle much of the routine forensic work. "Case Closed?" isn’t meant to invoke the end of human agency, but rather to move the conversation past whether AI will influence digital forensics, towards whether the forensic community is prepared for the future that is being created and how active a part to play in shaping it.

About LIM Tuan Liang:

Tuan Liang joined the Singapore Police Force in 2000 and headed the Technology Crime Forensic Branch in the Criminal Investigation Department from 2010 to 2019. In 2020, he moved to his current position as Director (Digital & Information Forensics) in the Home Team Science & Technology Agency (HTX) under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). He applies an integrated understanding of MHA’s mission to anticipate evolving trends in digital forensics and provides support required across all investigation units. His first computer was an Apple II and his first mobile device was a Nortel M900. He has a lifelong passion for technology and is always happy to do a deep dive.

Participation

DFRWS invites contributions in the categories listed below. The submission details are listed below under SUBMISSION INFORMATION.

FULL RESEARCH PAPERS that align with the conference topics will undergo a double-blinded peer review process. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings and can be published for inclusion in a special issue of Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation (Elsevier).

PRACTITIONER PRESENTATIONS & DEMOS require a brief proposal (~500 words; not a full paper) and undergo a light review process to identify content of high interest to DFRWS attendees and to screen out sales-oriented material. Presentations are especially meant for practitioners to share their work. Accepted proposals will be allocated a ~15-minute presentation slot during the conference.

POSTERS provide an opportunity to present ongoing research and discuss preliminary results with the digital forensics community during the conference. Posters may include early findings, research ideas, or a brief demonstration of a prototype. While posters will not be subject to formal peer review and will not be included in the published proceedings, they will be made available on the conference website. Authors will also have the opportunity to present their posters during breaks to engage with attendees and receive feedback from the community. Poster Specifications & Print Guidelines can be found on the website.

Poster Specifications & Print Guidelines

Poster Dimensions: A1 portrait (594 mm × 841 mm / 23.4″ × 33.1″)
File Format: .pdf
Graphic Resolution: Minimum 300 DPI

WORKSHOPS can range from 2 to 4 hours in length (please indicate your preferred duration) and should ideally involve hands-on participation by attendees, enabling an in-depth exploration of tools and techniques relevant to the DFRWS community. Workshops may focus on cutting-edge research projects, practical tips and techniques for widely used tools, or any content that would be of clear benefit to attendees. Proposals based on research previously presented at DFRWS or involving specialized hardware are especially encouraged.

PRESENTATION DELIVERY MODE

All presentations must be delivered in-person from the primary conference venue in Singapore. Delivery remotely may be accepted by the organizing committee in exceptional circumstances, at the discretion of the organizing committee.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION

We ask to submit all contributions via EasyChair (select the appropriate track): https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=dfrwsapac20260

Please make sure to follow the submission guidelines on the website: https://dfrws.org/submission-criteria/. Organizers may reject work that does not follow the listed criteria or does not fit the scope of the conference.

DEADLINES

All deadlines are at the end of the stated day at 23:59 using the Anywhere on Earth (AOE) convention.

For this event, the submission procedure has changed: We kindly ask to first register and submit the title, abstract, and author information. The full paper is then due later as shown in the DEADLINES section below.

Topics of Interest

DFRWS welcomes new perspectives that push the envelope of what is currently possible in digital forensic, and that provide practical solutions for real-world problems.

Potential topics to be addressed by submissions include, but are not limited to:

AI for digital forensics
Anti-forensics and anti-anti-forensics
Case studies and trend reports
Copyright infringement response
Cryptocurrency investigation
Data decoding, deserialization and decryption
Deleted/Damaged data recovery methods and tools
Development of digital forensic infrastructures
Digital evidence sharing and exchange
Digital forensic preparedness / readiness
Digital forensic tool validation
Digital forensics for AI
Digital forensics in smart cities
Digital investigation case management
Event reconstruction methods and tools
Forensic analysis of anonymous network based activities
Forensic analysis of cloud and virtualized environments
Forensic analysis of cloud-based services
Forensic analysis of databases
Forensic exploration of newly emerging devices, OSes, apps and services
Incident response on malware and targeted attacks
Laws and policies for digital evidence
Memory acquisition and analysis
Methodological frameworks for digital forensic activities
Mobile and embedded device forensics
Multimedia (image, audio, video) data analysis
Multi-source data integration and correlation analysis
Network and distributed system forensics
Non-traditional forensic scenarios / contexts
Privacy-preserving forensics
Special-purpose embedded systems (e.g., vehicles, industrial control systems, medical devices)
Steganography and steganalysis
Training and upskilling
Visualization methods and tools for forensic analysis

Click Here For Proposal Requirements

Deadlines

Date	Event
April 17, 2026	Full research papers: Call for papers open
~~May 22, 2026~~ May 29, 2026 (extended)	Full research papers: Abstract Submission For this event, the submission procedure has changed: We kindly ask to first register and submit the title, abstract, and author information. The full paper is then due later as shown below.
June 5, 2026 (extended)	Full research papers: Submission update (paper upload)
July 10, 2026	Full research papers: Notification of acceptance
July 24, 2026	Full research papers: Camera Ready Paper Submission and Presenter Registration
September 7, 2026	Workshops, Presentations, Demos, Posters (Rolling notification until the program is full)
September 30, 2026	Posters: Submission (no DOI / abstract publication)

Committees

Organizing Committee

Conference Chair

Parag Rughani (National Forensic Sciences University)

Conference Vice Chair

Zubair Baig (Deakin University)

Emeritus Chair

Bradley Schatz (Apple)

Local Chair

Raymond Chan (Singapore Institute of Technology)

Technical Program Chair

Frank Breitinger (University of Augsburg)

Technical Program Co-Chair

Naeem Syed (Deakin University)

Technical Program Vice-Chair

SITI Rahayu (Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka)

Chief Organizational Officer

Daryl Pfeif (Digital Forensics Solutions)

Secretary

Frank Adelstein (NFA Digital, LLC)

Workshop Chair

Jihun Joun (Arizona State University)

Workshop Vice Chair

Bhargav Rathod (Palo Alto Networks)

Demo and Presentation Chair

Akash Thakar (Rashtriya Raksha University)

Demo and Presentation Vice-Chair

Julian Broseus (University of Technology Sydney)

Keynote Chair

Bradley Schatz (Apple)

Keynote Vice Chair

Raymond Chan (Singapore Institute of Technology)

Law Enforcement Training Chair

HTX

Poster Chair

Elenore Ryser (University of Technology Sydney)

Poster Vice Chair

Allan Korol (CrowdStrike)

Rodeo Chair

Soutam Dey (Volvo Group)

Rodeo Co-Chair

Gaurav Gogia (Qualys)

Web Chair

Woosung Yun (Korea University)

Web Co-Chair

Luke Jennings (Flinders University)

Proceeding Chair

Gaurav Gogia (Qualys)

Proceeding Vice Chair

Jieon Kim (Korea University)

Scheduling Chair

Luke Jennings (Flinders University)

Academic Outreach Chair

Jungheum Park (Korea University)

Academic Outreach Chair

Priyanka Singh (University of Queensland)

Virtual Participation / Satelite Site Chair

Asanka Sayakkara (University of Colombo)

Virtual Participation / Satelite Site Co-Chair

Mariya Shafat (University of Kashmir)

Industry Outreach Chair

Dai Shimogaito (Aiforense Japan Data Recovery, inc.)

Technical Program Committee

Frank Breitinger

University of Augsburg

Siti Rahayu

Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka

Naeem Syed

Deakin University - Geelong Waurn Ponds Campus

Mark Scanlon

University College Dublin

Harald Baier

Universität der Bundeswehr München, Research Instiute CODE

Raymond Chan

Singapore Institute of Technology

Luke Jennings

The University of Adelaide

Lojenaa Navanesan

University of Vavuniya

Daryl Pfeif

DFRWS

Weihan Goh

Singapore Institute of Technology

Parag Rughani

National Forensic Sciences University

Min Yu

Institute of Information Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Sean Mckeown

Edinburgh Napier University

Ricardo J. Rodríguez

Universidad de Zaragoza

Jens-Petter Sandvik

National Criminal Investigation Service, Norway

Wietse Venema

Google

Jungheum Park

Korea University

Janine Schneider

University of Augsburg

Saed Alrabaee

United Arab Emirates University

Jimmy McGibney

South East Technological University

Milan Cermak

Institute of Computer Science, Masaryk University

Taeshik Shon

Ajou univ

Hudan Studiawan

Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember

Kwok-Yan Lam

Nanyang Technological University

Dohyun Kim

National Korea Maritime & Ocean University

Jewan Bang

Hansei University

Atefeh Mohseni Ejiyeh

University of California, Santa Barbara

Patrick De Smet

Nationaal Instituut voor Criminalistiek en Criminologie (NICC/INCC)

Akash Thakar

Rashtriya Raksha University

Richard E Overill

King's College London

Jan-Niclas Hilgert

Fraunhofer

Javier Carrillo-Mondéjar

Universidad de Zaragoza

Changhoon Lee

Seoul National University of Science and Technology

Jihun Joun

Arizona State Univeristy

Rune Nordvik

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Frank Adelstein

NFA Digital, LLC

Leslie Sikos

Edith Cowan University

Funmilola Fagbola

University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Jan Pluskal

Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Information Technology

Christopher Hargreaves

HARGS Solutions Ltd

Jan Gruber

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Niken Cahyani

Telkom University

Yash Patel

National Forensic Sciences University

Jungin Lee

Sungkyunkwan University

Wishnu Agung Baroto

DJP

Martin Lambertz

Fraunhofer FKIE

Vladimír Veselý

Brno University of Technology

Sumin Shin

Sungkyunkwan University

Arun Kalackattu Hari

South Australia Police

Bhupendra Singh

Indian Institute of Information Technology Pune

Randi Rizal

Universitas Siliwangi

Nitesh Bharadwaj

National Institute of Technology Raipur

Khushi Gupta

University of North Georgia

Prasad Purnaye

Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme Post Doctoral Fellow (PDF)

Sung Jin Lee

Sungkyunkwan University

Bailey Heading

Matthew Sorell

The University of Adelaide

Seongmin Kim

Sungshin Women's University

Registration

Registration is open! Discounted rates apply for Full Time members of the Law Enforcement community and for Full Time Students only.

Groups of 5 or more and Satellite Site Partners are eligible for Group Discounts please contact APAC-Registration (at) dfrws (dot) org for details.

In Person Conference Prices

Type of Registration	Early Bird Rate	Regular Rate	Last Chance Rate
Available through...	August 31, 2026	October 6, 2026
Standard	USD 745	USD 845	USD 945
Law Enforcement	USD 645	USD 745	USD 845
Student	USD 545	USD 645	USD 745
Virtual	USD 75	USD 100	USD 150