VehicleSec 2026 (USENIX Symposium on Vehicle Security and Privacy) is an academic conference held in Baltimore, Maryland, USA on 2026-08-10. The paper submission deadline is 2026-02-24. Acceptance notifications are sent on 2026-04-07.
Overview
A vehicle is a machine that transports people and/or goods in one or more physical domains, such as on the ground (e.g., cars, bicycles, motorcycles, trucks, buses, scooters, trains), in the air (e.g., drones, airplanes, helicopters), in the water (e.g., ships, submarine), and in space (e.g., spacecraft). Due to their safety and mission-critical nature, the security and privacy of vehicles can pose direct threats to passengers, owners, operators, and the infrastructure. Recent improvements in vehicle autonomy and connectivity (e.g., autonomous driving, uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, intelligent transportation systems, and swarm robotics) have also served to exacerbate security and privacy challenges and thus require urgent attention from academia, industry, and policy-makers. To meet this critical need, VehicleSec aims to bring together an audience of university researchers, scientists, industry professionals, and government representatives to contribute new theories, technologies, and systems on any security/privacy issues related to vehicles (e.g., ground, aerial, in/on water, space), their sub-systems (e.g., in-vehicle networks, autonomy, connectivity, human-machine interfaces), supporting infrastructures (e.g., transportation infrastructure, charging station, ground control station), and related fundamental technologies (e.g., sensing, control, AI/ML/DNN/LLM, wireless communication, real-time computing, edge computing, location service, simulation, digital twin, multi-agent protocol/system design, and human-machine interaction).
Demo/Poster Session
VehicleSec will feature a demo/poster session to allow academic, governmental, and industry participants to share demonstrations and/or present posters of their latest practical attacks, defenses, and security/privacy tools or systems related to vehicles.
Tutorial Session
The symposium will also feature a tutorial session with an in-depth learning experience on one or more state-of-the-art topics in vehicle privacy and security presented by researchers or practitioners within the field. A tutorial should focus on its topic in detail and include references to the "must-read" papers or materials within its domain. Tutorials in which participants actively engage in exercises or hands-on work are particularly welcome. We encourage tutorials to include hands-on elements, live demonstrations, or interactive discussions. Each tutorial will be allocated a one-hour slot. Proposals should clearly indicate the format of the tutorial, prerequisites for participating in the tutorial (e.g., background knowledge, program languages), required materials (e.g., hardware, datasets, virtual machine images, wifi access), including (if any) material provided by the applicant (e.g., hardware, documentation).
Lightning Talks Session
The symposium will feature a Lightning Talks session with short and engaging 5-minute in-person presentations on any topics that can be worth a timely shout-out to the VehicleSec community, which include but are not limited to emerging hot topics, preliminary research results, practical problems encountered, lessons learned, the introduction of tutorials and education materials, tips and tricks, simulators/simulations, data and visualizations (e.g., autonomous driving datasets), or other (interdisciplinary) topics related to vehicles.
Awards
Accepted papers and demos/posters will be considered for Best Paper Award and Best Demo Award. Accepted artifacts will be considered for the Distinguished Artifact Award.
Areas of Interest
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
Embedded/sensor/analog/actuator security, privacy, and forensics in vehicle settings
Vehicle-related malware/firmware analysis
Secure/resilient/trustworthy/privacy-preserving perception, localization, planning, and control in autonomous/automated vehicles
Security/safety/robustness verification related to vehicles
Intra- and inter-vehicle network (e.g., CAN bus, V2X, remote operator channel) security
Multi-vehicle coordination/cooperation (e.g., V2X, drone swarm) security
Compliance with policies (e.g., legal, security, privacy, safety, and environmental policies)
Secure integration of hardware and software systems for vehicles (e.g., ground, aerial)
Secure software/hardware updates in vehicle settings (e.g., cars, drones, airplanes, spacecraft)
Privacy challenges in vehicle settings, (e.g., driver/passenger privacy, drone/car/robot spying, intellectual property stealing, etc.)
Privacy-preserving data sharing and analysis in vehicle settings
Security/privacy in electric, medium- and heavy-duty vehicle systems
Security/privacy in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), (e.g., intelligent traffic signals)
Security/privacy for vehicle-related supporting infrastructure (e.g., charging)
Secure vehicle-related software/hardware development process (e.g., debugging tools, simulators, testbed) and their own security/privacy
Security/privacy of any vehicle-related fundamental technologies (e.g., sensing, control, AI, location service, IoT, etc.)
Human factors, trust, humans in the loop, and usable security related to vehicles
Security/privacy/resilience-related metrics and risk assessment for vehicles
GenAI-enabled attacks on vehicles and corresponding defensive approaches
GenAI tools and frameworks for the security of vehicles