The 7th IEEE International Conference on Malicious and Unwanted Software "The Americas" (Malware 2012 The Americas) will be held at El Conquistador Hotel & Resort, Fajardo, Puerto Rico, USA, October 16-17, 2012. This year, and after an extremely successful conference in 2011, the steering committee has decided to expand our reach by hosting two Malware conferences. Malware 2013 Asia Pacific in June 2013, and Malware 2012 - The Americas to be held in the same location as last year’s conference at El Conquistador Hotel & Resort, Fajardo, Puerto Rico, October 2012.



The success of past Malware conferences is due in great part to its unique format. We bring together academicians, researchers, government researchers, and industry practitioners who share our desire for “Intimacy and Candor”; Intimacy refers to the conference desire to limit the number of participants in such a way that one-one contacts are the norm. Candor refers to our desire for honest discussion. This is accomplished by restricting the number of papers per section to three, and leaving significant amount time for open and honest discussions. As one Malware participant said “when you attend the Malware conference, you check your ego at the desk, you will be challenge and you will challenge others. The key idea is to learn from each other. Frankly, in today’s world of instant communication the traditional model for a conference no longer works. You can always read the manuscripts on-line. At the Malware conference, the discussions and challenges which are the norm could not be replicated virtually. That is the single most important reason why I attend each year”



This year’s conference will pay particular attention to (and will also be extensively discussed in several panel sessions) the pressing topic of “Defending the Extended Network …What happened to the walls? As Smartphones become the preferred access device, while applications and data reside at multiple locations in the Cloud, the idea of protecting “the network” and the end-point (a Windows device) is no longer practical. A paradigm shift is upon us, and protecting both application and data in a world of billions of Smartphone devices is intriguing and challenging. Clearly, there is no longer a network to protect. Further, the concept of an extended network has significant limitations. In the new paradigm what is emerging is the concept a “Trusted Domains” with no physical boundaries. Thus, the organizers of Malware 2012 solicit original written contributions addressing these issues and research questions. Manuscripts focusing on the security properties of “Trusted Domains”, Cloud Computing, and the risks associated with the deployment of such computing paradigm, and the analysis of real incidents where a breach has occurred will be particularly welcomed.



Submissions are solicited in, but not limited to, the following areas:



• Theoretical aspects and new directions in Malware related research, specifically, manuscripts that explore the concepts of “Trust Domains” that do not have or desire physical boundaries

• Smartphone Malware, protecting a new class of end-points with hyper-mobility

• Analysis and measurements of real malware incidents

• Worms, viruses and other propagating Malware

• Spyware, keystroke loggers, information theft Malware

• Honeypots and other sample collection methodologies

• Botnet attacks, detection/tracking and defense

• Malware economics and black market studies

• Code reverse engineering tools and practices

• Malware performance, analysis and capture tools

• Anti-spam and anti-phishing techniques and practices

• Legal aspects of unwanted software use

• Malware and its impact in social networking and cloud computing

• Rootkit and virtualization techniques

• Malware in wireless mobile devices



Publication:



The proceedings of the conference will be published in printed, and DVD, form and will be included in the IEEE Xplore digital library. In addition, the Conference’s Technical Program Committee will select one manuscript as a recipient of the “Best Paper Award”. The Best Paper Award author, together with the authors of a few selected manuscripts from the conference, will be invited to submit an extended version to a special issue of the Journal of Computer Security.











Paper Submission Information:







Papers should be submitted through EDAS system at:



http://www.edas.info/



Submitted manuscripts must be 10-point font size, and should not exceed 8 single-spaced pages in length, including the abstract, figures, and references. Authors whose manuscript exceeds the 8 page limit may be allowed to include two additional pages for an extra charge. However, under no circumstances shall a submitted manuscript exceed the 10 page limit. Submitted papers must not substantially overlap with papers that have been published or that are simultaneously submitted to a journal or a conference with proceedings.



Additional Information:



For more information on Malware 2012 or if you are interested in contributing to the organization of the conference please contact Dr. Fernando C. Colon Osorio, General Program Chair, Malware 2012 at fccobrandeis.edu or visit our web site www.malware2012.org. For information concerning submission of an original manuscript to the conference, please contact the Technical Program Committee Chairs (TPC).



Malware 2012 Program Committee

General Program Chair:



Dr. Fernando C. Colon Osorio, WSSRL and Brandeis University, USA



Technical Program Committee Co-Chairs:



Dr. Anthony Arrott, Trends Micro, USA



Technical Program Committee Members :



Dr. Guillaume.Bonfante, LORIA, France

Mr. Pierre-Marc Bureau, ESET, CANADA

Dr. Seyit A. Camtepe, Technische Universität Berlin

Dr. Milla Dalla Preda , Verona University, Italy

Prof. Saumya Debray, Arizona University, USA

Prof. Thomas Engel, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Prof. José M. Fernandez, Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada

Dr. Olivier Festor, INRIA Nancy Grand-Est, France

Prof. Brent Kang, North Carolina University, USA

Prof. Felix Leder, Bonn Universtiy, Germany

Prof. Jean-Yves Marion, Nancy Université, France, TPC

Dr. Jose Andres Morales, University of Texas, San Antonio, USA

Dr. Jose Nazario, Arbor networks, USA

Dr. Phil Porras, SRI International, USA

Dr. Fred Raynal, Sogeti, France

Dr. Aubrey-Derrick Schmidt, Deutsche Telekom Labs

Prof. Andrew Walenstein, Lafayette University, USA

Mr. Jeff Williams, Microsoft, USA

Prof. Yang Xiang, Deakin University, Australia

Prof. Cliff C. Zou (Changchun Zou), University Central Florida, USA,





Malware 2012 Keynote, Panels & Tutorials :



Mr. Jim Melvin, President & CEO, AppNeta, Inc., USA

Dr. Amit Sinha, SVP Engineering, Chief Technology Officer at Zscaler, USA