Call for Papers

 

Submission Guidelines

1. Submission Title
2. Speaker Name(s)
3. Speaker’s Email (this is how we will contact you)
4. Speaker’s biography (300 words or less per speaker)
5. Abstract for your talk ( minimum 300 words)
6. Detailed talk outline
7. Whether this would be your first speaking engagement at a conference
8. Whether this talk has been previously given at another conference (If yes then please share video/Slides)
   
9. Shirt Size
10. Any kind of Equipment Needs (beyond AV equipment)

 

If the submission is missing any of the above items, it will not be accepted.

We will do our best to accommodate equipment needs, but presenters are responsible for any equipment beyond A/V equipment.

 

Important Dates

• August 15th, 2018: Call For Papers Opens
• October 15th, 2018: Call for paper closes
• November 1st, 2018: Notifications sent

 

Review Process

Each submitted talk will be reviewed by a committee of dedicated reviewers.

A final group of core conference staff will make a final judgement on each talk based on the comments provided by the review panel. Reviewers score talks based on a number of criteria included, but not limited to:

• Detail of submission
• The novelty of the talk
• Whether the talk has been given previously
• Whether the talk has been recorded previously
• Whether the talk fit in the current cyber security scenario

We offer two submission rounds for talks. BSides Dubai believes in feedback and education as part of the CFP process. With that in mind, we will send out clear acceptance and rejection letters at the end of each round.

 

Email us all the required details  at secbsides@protonmail.com

 

Topics & Format

Topics should be cutting edge, but shouldn't require a PhD and a custom lab environment to plan and deploy. Below are a few ideas of talks or workshops just to get the brain juice flowing. Keep in mind these are just examples – not a complete list. We are interested in all the talks related to Information Security:

•     Common Attacks within the local cyberspace and effective Mitigations 
•     Establishing an effective security culture
•     Delivering effective security on a small, shoe string budge
•     Security (and insecurity) of things like exotic hardware, autonomous vehicles, IoT, robotics, medical devices, voting machines & other hardware-centric targets.
•     Exploit Development submissions are welcome across a wide array of technologies and targets from servers to mobile devices.
•     We prize offensive cryptography and cryptanalysis, but will host defensive and research cryptography when rooted in a context of real-world attacks.
•    We're an especially good place to send new vulnerabilities in cryptographic protocols like TLS, cryptographic hardware like HSMs and smart cards, and SHA-1.
•     How DevOps/DevSecOps culture and practices can improve security
•     Practical security metrics and using data to identify what actually works
•    Reverse Engineering & Malware Analysis
•     Reducing complexity and technical debt to improve security
•     Effective, pragmatic and sustainable defensive security strategies and tools
•     Using security metrics to inform risk analysis, identify priorities and measure progress
•     Using machine learning to improve security
•     Using big data and data visualization to improve incident detection and response
•     Effective security incident management and response
•     Lessons learned from security incidents
•     Zero trust networking/the death of the network perimeter
•     Using and defending against Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques
•      Demonstrating penetration testing tools and techniques
•      Threat modeling and OpSec techniques for high-risk people
•      Focused research into the security of cars, medical devices, smart toys, Internet of Things (IoT), web applications, cloud services, hardware, etc.

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Length

 

When you submit, you can decide on your talk length. We are happy to support anything from a 30 minutes talk to a 60 minutes demonstration or talk. In addition to this, we are also interested in submissions for 2 hours to 3 hours workshops.

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Tips for Submitting a Successful CFP

 

 

Following these tips will help us understand why we should select your presentation for BSides Dubai.

•   Give your proposal a simple and straightforward title.
•   Ensure that your talk is authentic, your peers will want original ideas, real-world scenarios, relevant examples or to learn something cool.
•   Include as much detail about the presentation as possible.
•   Explain why people will want to attend your talk and what they’ll take away from it.
•   Keep your proposal free of marketing, sales, buzzwords, jargon and Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD).
•   Limit the scope of your talk and ensure that you cover the interesting idea, concept, technique or finding in the presentation time you have selected.
•   If you only have enough material to present for 30 minutes, please don’t propose a 60 minutes talk and then stretch your material to fill time.

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We are not accepting any vendor pitches or corporate cheerleading talks. You are welcome to talk briefly about what your company does, or use corporate slides. However, your talk must focus on sharing your ideas, experience and knowledge with the community, and not selling products and services.