Semantic Shields 1

the 1^st INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON MODELING FOR CYBERSECURITY - Edition 2024

Semantic Shields I: The 1^st International Workshop on Modeling for Cybersecurity is an event focusing on theoretical aspects and practical applications of conceptual models and ontologies to cybersecurity. The workshop date is now the 16th of July 2024 (Tuesday), not the 15th as initially announced.

Semantic Shields I will take place at the University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands, co-located with the 14th edition of the International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS), the flagship conference of the International Association of Ontology and its Applications (IAOA).

We are working to bring keynote presentations, workshop presentations, and an interactive panel session with industry experts.

Cybersecurity, which concerns both human and technological aspects, refers to a set of techniques used to protect the integrity of networks, programs, and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized access. With the spread of systems and applications, attacks continue to grow in sophistication, with attackers using an ever-expanding variety of tactics such as social engineering, malware, and ransomware. For this reason, to reduce the risk of cyber-attacks and protect against exploitations, new methods and technologies are emerging. Formal methods, in particular ontologies, constitute an effective approach to mitigate the incompleteness and ambiguity of security directives and to semantically characterize security stakeholders, ranging from offensive techniques to compliance, vulnerability, encryption, data protection, authentication, confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The  “Semantic Shields: International Workshop on Modeling for Cybersecurity” aims to bring together cybersecurity experts, conceptual modelers, and ontologists, from scholars to practitioners, to develop applications, methods, and tools impacting the cybersecurity domain.

Topics of Interest

The workshop topics include but are not limited to:

• Novel conceptual models or ontologies of cybersecurity or its subtopics (networks, cloud security, phishing attacks, legal issues, etc.)
• Novel knowledge graphs (RDF, OWL, or other semantic technologies) of cybersecurity domains or for cybersecurity purposes (say, risk assessment).
• Systematic literature reviews that identify gaps concerning the applications of conceptual models or ontologies for cybersecurity purposes.
• Showcase applications and use cases of new or existing cybersecurity ontologies or conceptual models.
• Early works are welcome as well as the presentation of mature published works.

Important Dates

All deadlines are Anywhere on Earth (AoE = UTC-12h)

• Abstract submission (optional): 8 April 2024
• Full paper submission: 17 April 2024 24 April 2024 (extended)
• Author notification: 15 May 2024
• Workshop date: 16 July 2024
• Camera-ready submission: 30 July 2024 6 August 2024 (extended)

Submission Guidelines

The workshop welcomes submissions of full papers, short papers, practitioner reports, and presentations of published works. The respective lengths are:

• Full papers: 10-14 pages (research papers)
• Short papers: 5-9 pages (research-in-progress papers, practitioner reports)
• Presentations of peer-reviewed published works: One-page abstract with a reference to the published work.

(Page number includes references)

All accepted papers (except for the abstract of published works) will be published in the Joint Ontology Workshops (JOWO) proceedings. At least one author of each accepted paper must register and participate in the workshop. 

Submissions must adhere to the one-column CEUR template. General information on CEUR proceedings can be found here:

Direct links to the MS Word and Latex templates are:

• MS Word
• Latex  

Submissions need to be uploaded on EasyChair as a single PDF: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fois2024.

Authors of accepted papers must provide the original source file and submit the author agreement form.

Contributions that include semantic artifacts, methodologies, software, etc, need to adhere to the FAIR guidelines.

All contributions (except for the abstract of published works) to JOWO workshops will be published in a joint CEUR proceedings volume. For comparison, check out some previous publications:

• JOWO 2022: https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3249/
• JOWO 2021: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2969/
• JOWO 2020: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2708/
• JOWO 2019: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2518/
• JOWO 2018: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2205/
• JOWO 2017: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2050/

Program

WHEN: Tuesday, 16.07.2024

WHERE: Room 3138 of the TECHNOHAL (TECHMED CENTRE) at the University of Twente. More information on the conference venue.

11:00 - 11:30

• Short opening
• Invited talk: Alexander Nelson, Interoperability Efforts in the Cyber Domain Ontology (15 minutes, online presentation)

11:30 - 12:30

• Interactive Panel Session: Gal Engelberg, Julik Keijer, Avi Shaked, Cybersecurity Challenges and Semantic Solutions

12:30 - 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 - 14:15 Richard Hull, Matt Bishop, Karl Levitt, Mohammad Sadoghi and Matthew Lange. Conceptual Modeling to Advance Agrifood Cybersecurity Ontologies (full paper)

14:15 - 14:30 Gerd Wagner. A Conceptual Model and Simulation Model for Phishing (short paper)

14:30 - 14:45 Avi Shaked. An integrative security modelling environment (presentation of published works)

14:45 - 15:00 David Limbaugh, Mark Jensen and John Beverley. Towards a Cyber Information Ontology (full paper)

15:00 - 15:15 Giampaolo Bella, Domenico Cantone, Gianpietro Castiglione, Marianna Nicolosi-Asmundo and Daniele Francesco Santamaria. A Meta-Ontological Approach to Securing the Semantic Web Data (short paper, online presentation)

15:15 - 15:30 Zubeida Dawood and Matshidiso Marengwa. Ontology-Driven Cybersecurity Learning Factory: A Use Case for Securing Electricity Utilities (full paper)

Organization

• Ítalo Oliveira (University of Twente)
• Daniele Francesco Santamaria (University of Catania)
• Thijs van Ede (University of Twente)
• Dan Klein (Accenture Labs Israel)
• Gal Engelberg (Accenture Labs Israel, University of Haifa)
• Gianpietro Castiglione (University of Catania)
• Giampaolo Bella (University of Catania)
• Andrea Continella (University of Twente)
• Giancarlo Guizzardi (University of Twente)

Program committee

Disclaimer

We ask the members of the FOIS community to pay close attention to phishing and scam attempts. Please follow only trusted sources for information about FOIS 2024 and JOWO 2024:

• this website, (the only official website for FOIS 2024 and JOWO 2024)
• the IAOA official website
• the IAOA page on LinkedIn

If you identify a suspicious source of information or a potential case of phishing related to FOIS or JOWO, please report it to fois2024@utwente.nl.

Latest Updates

• The workshop date is now the 16th of July 2024 (Tuesday), not the 15th as initially announced.
• The dates for submission have been anticipated to follow the FOIS schedule.