ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security

ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
Name	ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
Abbreviation	CCS
Discipline	Computer security; Cryptography; Network security
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Country	International
Established	1993
Frequency	Annual

ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security is a premier annual Association for Computing Machinery event focusing on computer security, cryptography, and network security. The conference attracts researchers from institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Cambridge. Attendees frequently include representatives from industry labs like Microsoft Research, Google Research, IBM Research, Facebook AI Research, and Intel Labs, as well as policymakers from bodies such as National Institute of Standards and Technology, European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Overview

The conference presents peer-reviewed research spanning theoretical work from groups at Princeton University, Harvard University, ETH Zurich, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and Tsinghua University alongside systems research from teams at Apple Inc., Amazon Web Services, NVIDIA Research, Cisco Systems, and Juniper Networks. Program committees historically included scholars affiliated with Cornell University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Texas at Austin, University of Washington, and Technical University of Munich. Keynote speakers often come from institutions such as National Security Agency, European Research Council, Simons Foundation, Royal Society, and AAAS.

History and Evolution

Founded in 1993 with early participation by researchers from Bell Labs, AT&T Laboratories, SRI International, University of California, Davis, and University of Southern California, the conference evolved alongside developments at RSA Conference, DEF CON, Black Hat, Usenix Security Symposium, and IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. Over time, methodological shifts reflected advances from teams at Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Facebook AI Research, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Geographic rotation of venues has taken place across cities such as San Francisco, New York City, Barcelona, Sydney, and London, with organizing committees including members from University of Toronto, McGill University, University of Waterloo, Seoul National University, and Keio University.

Conference Scope and Topics

Research topics routinely cover areas such as applied cryptography influenced by work at RSA Laboratories, NIST Cryptographic Standards, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and International Association for Cryptologic Research; systems security investigated by groups at Google Project Zero, Apple Security Engineering, Intel SGX teams, and AMD Research; network security explored by labs at Cisco Talos, FireEye, Palo Alto Networks, and Akamai Technologies; privacy research from centers like IAPP, Future of Privacy Forum, Carnegie Mellon Cylab, and Oxford Internet Institute; and formal methods advanced by researchers at Microsoft Research Cambridge, INRIA, University of Oxford, and University of Edinburgh.

Organization and Governance

The conference is governed by the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control and coordinated with advisory chairs from institutions such as Cornell Tech, Columbia University, Imperial College London, and University of California, Santa Barbara. Program committees have drawn members from University of Maryland, Rutgers University, Purdue University, Brown University, and Duke University, while local organizing teams have partnered with municipal authorities in cities like Toronto, Amsterdam, Beijing, Singapore, and Melbourne. Sponsorship and partnerships have included organizations such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, and Intel as well as funding agencies like National Science Foundation, European Commission, and Japan Science and Technology Agency.

Proceedings and Publications

Accepted papers are published in proceedings overseen by the Association for Computing Machinery and indexed alongside collections from ACM SIGCOMM, ACM SIGPLAN, ACM SIGMOD, ACM SIGGRAPH, and ACM CHI. Many influential articles have been archived in digital libraries alongside theses from Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Yale University, and Columbia University. Special issues and extended versions sometimes appear in journals such as ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Journal of Cryptology, Communications of the ACM, and Transactions on Privacy and Security.

Awards and Recognition

The conference confers awards recognizing excellence in research and service, with lifetime achievement and best-paper honors often associated with laureates from Turing Award–level institutions like MIT, Stanford, Bell Labs, IBM Research, and Microsoft Research. Notable awardees have included scholars affiliated with Ronald Rivest-level cryptography groups, Adi Shamir-era researchers, and teams connected to Diffie–Hellman developments; committees have also highlighted contributions from practitioners at CERT/CC, ENISA, Interpol, and Internet Society.

Impact and Notable Contributions

Papers presented have shaped standards and deployments influenced by NIST, IETF, IEEE, ISO, and ITU and have driven product changes at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. Landmark contributions have come from collaborations among researchers at MIT Media Lab, Berkeley AI Research, CMU Software Engineering Institute, ETH Zurich Systems Group, and INRIA Cryptography Group, impacting technologies such as secure enclaves from Intel, encryption protocols used in TLS, and privacy techniques adopted by WhatsApp, Signal Foundation, and Telegram Messenger LLP.

Category:Academic conferences in computer security