As eCrime Engages Adversaries Now Assisted By Advanced AI, Its Research Products Could Not Be More Vital to Shared Ecosystem Defense
CAMBRIDGE, MA / ACCESS Newswire / March 3, 2026 / The 2026 APWG Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime 2026) in Lisbon examines essential factors for managing the impacts of the global cybercrime plexus – to secure IT users, commercial enterprises, governments, national infrastructures, and operational technologies. eCrime 2026 on November 2 – 6 will be the 21st annual peer-reviewed, publishing symposium hosted by APWG.
General session presentations and peer-reviewed papers’ talks are scheduled for November 3-5. The full conference week, however, will include eCrime Training Day Sessions on Monday afternoon/evening (Nov. 2) and a cybercrime policy session – by invitation – on Friday (Nov. 6) morning.
eCrime 2026 presents general session discussions from all stake-holding industries, research centers, and from counter-cybercrime experts from every discipline and sector, commercial cybercrime response enterprises, law enforcement agencies, NGOs, and multilateral organizations. As well, eCrime 2026 spotlights the accepted peer-reviewed papers of the 2026 edition of eCrime.
In addition, the pre-conference eCrime Training Day Sessions for researchers and industry practitioners will give trainers an opportunity to discuss their areas of expertise with attendees on Monday, November 2, the day before the conference proceedings begin on 3 November. These longer sessions are aimed at transferring skills and passing the torch to a new generation of researchers and practitioners.
The symposium notes page is here: https://apwg.org/events/ecrime2026
Proposals for General Session presentations and for the eCrime Training Sessions should be forwarded to: [email protected] Deadline: September 3 – sooner is better
eCrime 2026 peer-reviewed papers are submitted through the conference’s HotCRP webpage at: https://ecrime2026.hotcrp.com/ Deadline: Saturday May 30, 2026, 12 AM EDT
Reservation link for discounted APWG accommodations is here: https://book.passkey.com/event/51199882/owner/14293470/home
READ CAREFULLY BEFORE RESERVING: There is no deadline for reservations this year at conference venue, InterContinental Lisbon. All changes to reservations (e.g. arrival date, departure date, etc.) need to be completed, however, by August 4. Cancellations on or after August 5 will be charged in full — or if the delegate makes changes to the reservation (e.g. shorten the stay), penalties will be applied. Any questions, please contact eCrime programs manager Joyce Perhac at [email protected]
eCrime 2026 Delegates’ Accommodations: InterContinental Lisbon
eCrime Conference Week Digest
Nov 2 – eCrime Training Day Sessions
Nov 2 (evening) – Welcome reception
Nov 3-5 – eCrime Conference Proceedings
Nov 5th (evening) – eCrime Chalk Talk / WIPs, Demos, Collaboration Opportunities & Wild Ideas Worthy of Domestication
Nov 6 – eCrime Roundtable on Measurement, Transparency, and Cyber Integrity Policy
Your eCrime 2026 Hosts and the Symposium’s Chairs
(L to R) General Chair Laurin Weissinger (UC Berkeley / Tufts University), Publications Chair Miranda Bruce (UNSW Canberra) and Program Chair Ebrima Ceesay (MasterCard)
Call for Papers
Beyond soliciting research into cybercrime that inflicts financial losses, as eCrime has since 2006, eCrime 2026’s chairs are particularly interested in papers that address challenges in: cyber-physical systems and operational technologies; artificial intelligence; and the interaction between different system layers (such as socio-technical systems) that are employed or abused by cybercriminals for profit – and for advancement of larger criminal enterprises.
Solicited Topics Consonant With eCrime 2026’s Theme Include:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) as criminal co-conspirator and defensive collaborator, such as:
Malicious AI agents employed to perform enhanced malware polymorphism, agentic spearphishing, reconnaissance, etc. Development and maintenance of criminal co-pilots and the future of human-machine teaming, including hybridized human-crimebot cyber gangs.
Are malicious AI tools lowering the skills barrier to commit more advanced cybercrimes?
Adversarial AI (attacks directly against AIs and machine learning systems) as it relates to the furtherance of cybercrime or cyber-physical cybercrime – especially agents employed in security operations
Defensive AI Agents deployed as cybersecurity operations managers and (autonomous and semi-autonomous) counter-cybercrime managers
Design, deployment and assessment of multi-agent environments (MAEs) for enhancing resilience of infrastructure and systems to cybercrime
Design, deployment and assessment of defences related to AI systems themselves (jailbreaks, injections, etc.)
Actual, emerging or potential risks from AI systems deployed to animate cybercrimes against people, operational systems, IoT technologies, or physical spaces and objects
Abuse of cyber-physical systems and operational technologies and downstream manipulation (extant, emerging or potential) for furtherance of crimes with physical manifestations, including:
Drone and robot hijacking and weaponization;
Criminal abuses and weaponization of medical and surgical systems;
Criminal abuses and weaponization of IoT for domestic and commercial targeting;
Criminal abuses and weaponization of autonomous vehicles and delivery robots
AI and machine-learning system security to mitigate threats posed by advanced cybercriminal algorithms – and to guard against strategically misinforming and abusing them for criminal enterprises
New research on policy, regulation, and law as they pertain to cybercrime of all types
AI and machine-learning system security to mitigate threats posed by advanced cybercriminal algorithms – and to guard against strategically misinforming and abusing them for criminal enterprises
New research on policy, regulation, and law as they pertain to cybercrime of all types
Topics of general interest for submissions to eCrime 2026 are listed below, under the heading “Solicited Research Topics for APWG eCrime 2026.”
Important Dates (papers):
Full Paper Registration / Submission of full draft due: 30 May 2026
Training Session Proposals / full draft due: 30 May 2026
Notification of Acceptance / Shepherding decisions: 30 June 2026
Shepherding: 30 June 2026 – 30 August 2026
Conference: November: 3 – 5, 2026
Camera-ready paper due: November 30th, 2026
The selected peer-reviewed papers will be presented at the eCrime symposium along with panels and talks in General Sessions from other researchers selected from industrial and academic research centers correspondent with the APWG.
General Information eCrime sessions and proceedings are in English. The Lisbon venue is the Intercontinental Lisbon. Room reservation link for discounted accommodations during conference week is:
https://book.passkey.com/event/51199882/owner/14293470/home
Please see reservation details and notes above.
Please contact the APWG eCrime organizers for any other details via email at [email protected].
Discounts Students requiring discounts should contact symposium managers at [email protected]
IEEE members and partners requiring discounts should contact symposium managers at [email protected]
Discount codes are also available for university researchers, government personnel and law enforcement professionals from pubic-sector agencies as well as for IEEE members.
Please contact the APWG eCrime organizers for details via email at: [email protected].
Solicited Research Topics for APWG eCrime 2026 Since 2006, APWG eCrime has cast its call for papers in relevant research disciplines, focusing in large part on financial crimes that abuse Internet technologies and IT to victimize users, enterprises and their brands.
APWG eCrime also specifically solicits original research on cyber-physical systems and operational technologies abused in the furtherance of any kind of crime: cyber (digital) or manifested in physical spaces, such as homes, enterprises, roadways, public spaces and critical infrastructure.
eCrime’s curators define these cybercrimes as those that exploit, disrupt, or manipulate cyber-physical systems or operational technologies – systems that integrate control, feedback, and communication mechanisms across digital, mechanical, and biological domains.
The selected peer-reviewed papers will be presented at the eCrime symposium along with panels and talks in General Sessions from other researchers selected from industrial and academic research centers correspondent with the APWG.
Alongside this expanded topic spectrum, eCrime 2026 Lisbon is also soliciting papers that speak to the following topics and issues:
Economic foundations of: cybercrime cyber-physical crimes; and other abuses of IT for criminal enterprise
Behavioural and psychosocial aspects of cybercrime; and cyber-physical system victimization and prevention
Emerging technological exposures, vulnerabilities, and risks
Architectural vulnerabilities (of products, operational technologies, infrastructures and cyber-physical systems) that advantage criminal actors
New or improved techniques to detect and respond to cybercrime and cyber-physical crimes of all types
How to accurately measure and understand the health and resilience of systems, networks, infrastructures and users against cybercrime
Addressing challenges of cybercrime’s increasing complexity (e.g. digital infrastructures, crime-fighting/forensic techniques, and the structure of the crimes themselves)
Measuring and modeling of cybercrime, cyber-physical system crimes and related criminal enterprises for operational protection routines
Measuring and modeling of cybercrime, cyber-physical system crimes and related criminal enterprises for informing rational underwriting instrumentation developed by commercial insurers
Analysis and modelling of the cybercrime and abuse risk landscape
Cybercrime/cyber-physical system crime payload delivery strategies and countermeasures (e.g. spam, mobile apps, social engineering, etc.)
Application of public policy and law for the programmatic suppression of common cybercrimes; crimes against or involving cyber-physical systems and related abuses
Policy and legal challenges as they relate to actually developing and sustaining anti-cybercrime practices and policies
Cryptocurrency crimes and related cybercrimes, and the forensic tools and techniques required to measure, prevent, and counter these crimes
Case studies of current cybercrime/cyber-physical system attack methods (e.g. phishing, malware, rogue antivirus programs, pharming, ransomware, crimeware, botnets, and emerging techniques)
Detecting and preventing abuse of internet infrastructure to neutralize cybercrimes/cyber-physical system crimes and abuses
Detecting and isolating cybercriminal gangs and their money laundering routines and enterprises
Cybercrime’s evolution in specific verticals (e.g. financial services, e-commerce, health and energy, etc.)
Cybercriminal cloaking techniques, and counter-cloaking tools and approaches
Design and evaluation of UI/UXs to neutralize fraud and enhance user security and cybercrime awareness
Novel methods for measuring cybercrime and related abuses for development of defensive routines and programs
Guidance for Authors Submit papers here: https://ecrime2026.hotcrp.com eCrime has adopted the IEEE publication format. Submissions should be in English, in PDF format with all fonts embedded, and formatted using the IEEE conference template, which can be found at: https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html
Submissions must include author names and affiliations, but should otherwise be anonymized. Authors’ own work should be referred to in the third person.
Papers should not exceed 12 letter-sized pages, excluding the bibliography and appendices. Committee members are not required to read appendices, so ensure that the main paper is intelligible without them.
Submitted papers that do not adhere to all the above guidelines may be rejected without consideration of their merits.
Authors of accepted papers must register for the event and present in person. Remote presentations delivered live and/or pre-recorded presentations will be considered in limited circumstances (e.g. where the lead author presents remotely and a co-author attends in person).
Author Awards, Presentation Details and Travel Scholarships
Authors will be asked to indicate whether they would like their submissions to be considered for the Best Student Paper Award. Any paper co-authored by a full-time student is eligible for this award.
Authors of accepted papers must guarantee that their paper will be presented at the conference. APWG eCrime understands that some authors may face difficulties in obtaining funding to attend the conference.
Therefore, a limited number of stipends are available for those who are unable to secure departmental or institutional underwriting for their travel. Students who will present their accepted papers themselves will be given priority in receiving this assistance.
Please contact the APWG eCrime organizers for details via email at: [email protected]
Call for Training Day Proposals
Are you an expert in a cybercrime research, cyber forensics or related investigation methods? Do you use a specialised resource/repository and want to show others how to use it too (or use it better)? Have you authored a new framework or modelling technique that you think more people should know about
At eCrime 2026 Lisbon, APWG will feature a pre-conference eCrime Training Day for researchers and industry practitioners. Trainers will have the opportunity to discuss their areas of expertise with attendees on Monday, November 2, the day before the conference begins (on 3 November). These longer sessions, more directly personal instructional programs are aimed at transferring skills and passing the torch to a new generation of researchers and practitioners.
Sessions could focus on a variety of relevant topics, such as:
How to collect, use, and analyse cybercrime data in investigations and/or research projects
How to investigate key data repositories, such as the DNS ecosystem, for research and investigations
New modelling methods for cyber threats, risks, and vulnerabilities
How to engage with policymakers as a cyber researcher or industry expert
An intro session for cybercrime researchers/investigators focusing on relevant security frameworks, standards, and best practices
Training session proposals should include:
Training session title Trainer/artisan biographic description 3-6 sentences of direct relevance to topic space covered in the proposed session
Topic description of 3-6 sentences describing what the training session will cover and competencies it will cultivate
Audience: eCrime prefers sessions that any eCrime attendee could benefit from; however, please note if your session would especially benefit a specific audience (e.g. threat intelligence researcher)
Prerequisites: eCrime prefers training sessions that do not require any prerequisites; however, we may make an exception for a topic of particular merit or interest
Session length minimum of 1 hour, maximum of 3 hours. Please also indicate whether your session length is strict (i.e. if we receive many session proposals, or if a trainer drops out, would you be able to make your session longer or shorter)
Include all the information above in a Word or PDF document and upload to https://ecrime2026.hotcrp.com and title your submission with “TRAINING DAY PROPOSAL” followed by your session title (for example “TRAINING DAY PROPOSAL Using the OWASP model in SMEs”.)
A maximum of 4 training sessions will be offered.
Important Dates (eCrime Training Day proposals)
Deadline for Proposals: June 15st 2026
Notification of Acceptance: July 15st 2026
Anticipated time for each training session: 1 to 3 hours, with a preference for longer, in-depth sessions that afford ample time for peer-to-peer and instructor-to-trainees dialog. If there is sufficient interest, APWG eCrime 2026 will consider running parallel sessions.
SOURCE: ANTI-PHISHING WORKING GROUP
