Topics of Interest

The Doctoral Symposium is open to fresh insights that challenge the current boundaries of digital forensics. The submissions can cover a broad range of topics related to digital forensics, including, but not limited to:

• Anti-forensics and anti-anti-forensics
• AI-assisted digital forensics
• Case studies and trend reports
• Cloud and virtualized environment forensics
• Covert channels (e.g., TOR, VPN)
• Cryptocurrency investigation
• Development of digital forensic infrastructures
• Digital evidence sharing and exchange
• Digital evidence and the law
• Digital forensic analysis of AI models
• Digital forensic preparedness / readiness
• Digital investigation case management
• Digital forensic tool validation
• Digital forensic triage / survey
• Event reconstruction methods and tools
• Forensics analysis and visualization of Big Data
• Forensic analysis of anonymous networks
• Forensic analysis of databases
• Implanted medical devices
• Incident response on malware and targeted attacks
• Machine learning and data mining for digital evidence extraction/query
• Memory acquisition and analysis
• Methodology for digital forensic processes
• Mobile and embedded device forensics
• Multimedia (image, audio, video) data analysis
• Network and distributed system forensics
• Non-traditional forensic scenarios / contexts
• SCADA / industrial control systems
• Smart power grid forensics
• Steganography and steganalysis
• Smart building forensics
• Vehicle forensics (e.g., drones, cars)
• Visualization methods and tools for forensic analysis

Submission Information

The Doctoral Symposium invites contributions in the form of Short Research Papers. They must be original contributions, must not be under simultaneous publication review elsewhere, the lead author must be a student, and must align with the topics of interest of the symposium. Survey/literature review papers are not suitable for publication at DFDS. The proceedings of DFDS will be published open access in the ACM International Conference Proceedings Series (ICPS).

Important note to authors about the new ACM open access publishing model

ACM has introduced a new open access publishing model for the International Conference Proceedings Series (ICPS). Authors based at institutions that are not yet part of the ACM Open program and do not qualify for a waiver will be required to pay an article processing charge (APC) to publish their ICPS article in the ACM Digital Library. To determine whether or not an APC will be applicable to your article, please follow the detailed guidance here: https://www.acm.org/publications/icps/author-guidance.

Further information may be found on the ACM website, as follows:

Full details of the new ICPS publishing model: https://www.acm.org/publications/icps/faq
Full details of the ACM Open program: https://www.acm.org/publications/openaccess

Please direct all questions about the new model to icps-info@acm.org.

Papers must be written in English, blinded, and must not exceed 6 single-spaced, two-column pages using the ACM template. This page limit does NOT include references and appendices, although references and appendices should be limited to one page each to the most extent possible (max 8 pages in total). Papers must be submitted as PDF files. Higher resolution graphics are required (vector graphics or >300 DPI). Authors can prepare their submission using the LaTeX template or the Microsoft Word template. In addition, an Overleaf template is available. Authors using LaTeX must use the “sigconf” call when using the ACM LaTeX Authoring template:

\documentclass[sigconf, screen, review]{acmart}

All submissions undergo an initial screening by the TPC Chair(s) ensuring relevance to the event and compliance with the submission criteria. Once approved, submissions will undergo a “double-blind” review process, therefore, the version submitted for review must not contain the names or affiliations of the authors and should anonymise content that readily identifies them. Please note that the Doctoral Symposium submissions will undergo a separate review process (and be published in a separate proceedings) compared to the full papers of the main DFRWS EU conference.

At least one full DFRWS EU registration per paper is required before submitting the camera-ready version, i.e., before the camera-ready submission deadline. Please note, this DFRWS EU registration is separate to any ACM ICPS publishing charge (should it apply). Authors MUST present their work in person at the symposium.

All contributions must be submitted to the Digital Forensics Doctoral Symposium track through the EasyChair site at https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=dfrwseu2025 

For questions related to the doctoral symposium, please send an email to: katerina (at) dfrws (dot) org

Committees

Organizing Committee

Technical Program Committee

Sponsors

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Information about sponsorship opportunities is available at: http://www.dfrws.org/sponsorship-opportunities