November 8, 2026, Hong Kong SAR, China
In recent years, we have witnessed severe security incidences caused by buggy protocols or implementations of cryptographic algorithms: POODLE, DROWN, OpenSSL Heartbleed, Windows Curveball certificate validation vulnerability, PDF shadow attacks, Google Titan Token Bluetooth bug, Samsung Galaxy IV reuse, vulnerable DUHK RNG, etc. It is critical for practitioners and researchers to ensure the security of cryptographic software and hardware, which are essential for a wide range of systems, services, and applications.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: The 7th SCIEN workshop will be held in conjunction with Inscrypt 2026 in Hong Kong SAR, China.
The aim of the SCIEN workshop is to provide an international forum of scientific research and development to explore the security issues in the implementation and deployment of cryptographic solutions. We are interested in these main aspects: (1) vulnerabilities and defenses in the implementation of cryptographic algorithms; (2) vulnerabilities and defenses in the implementation of cryptographic protocols; (3) defective cryptographic algorithms and protocols deployed in the wild; (4) weak cryptographic keys and random numbers in the cryptographic implementation; (5) runtime cryptographic key attacks and protections; (6) certificates and key management; (7) misuse or abuse of cryptographic services; and (8) other topics on secure cryptographic implementations.
We try to promote secure cryptographic solutions in the Internet, by exploring and discussing the (in)security issues. We solicit submissions of original research papers on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:
We are especially interested in papers with novel ideas, position papers, pilot studies, and initial findings. A workshop best paper award may be selected from accepted papers. The workshop program and keynote information will be announced on the workshop web site as arrangements are finalized.
Prospective authors are invited to submit manuscripts describing original work. The manuscript has to be written in English and in PDF format. All submissions must follow the original LNCS format (accessible on the Springer LNCS author guidelines webpage) with a page limit of 16 pages including all references and appendices.
Submit your papers: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=scien2026
For each accepted paper, at least one author is required to register for the main conference at the applicable author registration rate. Participation must be in person. All workshop attendees are required to register for the main conference. Please refer to Inscrypt 2026 and register here.
The post-proceedings plan for the SCIEN workshop will be announced when arrangements are finalized.
August 1, 2026 August 10, 2026 (EXTENDED)
August 25, 2026
September 15, 2026
Associate Professor Shuai Wang,
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Title: Testing and Securing Privacy-Enhancing Systems: A Software Security Perspective
Abstract: Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), such as secure multi-party computation, fully homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and trusted execution environments, provide powerful foundations for protecting sensitive data and computation. However, strong guarantees at the cryptographic level do not automatically translate into secure and reliable software systems. When these techniques are implemented through compilers, libraries, frameworks, configurations, and optimized software stacks, subtle implementation defects may undermine their intended security and privacy guarantees.
In this talk, I will present our recent efforts to test, analyze, and secure PET systems from a software security perspective. Our work applies techniques including differential and metamorphic testing, program analysis, and side-channel analysis to uncover security, privacy, and reliability issues in real-world MPC, FHE, ZKP, and TEE-based systems. I will also discuss our recent studies on vulnerabilities introduced by software configuration and compiler optimization, as well as opportunities for improving the security and efficiency of PET software. Together, these studies highlight the importance of bridging cryptographic design with rigorous software engineering to build trustworthy privacy-enhancing systems.
Bio: Shuai Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). His research interests broadly span computer security and privacy, with a particular focus on AI security, data privacy, and software security. He received the Early Career Award from the Hong Kong RGC, several industrial research awards from Google, Alibaba, and Tencent, as well as paper awards at leading conferences including IEEE S&P 2025 and ASE 2023.
Additional invitations are ongoing.
Fangyu Zheng
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China