General information

FSE 2026 will take place in Singapore, Singapore on 23-27 March 2026. FSE 2026 is organized by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR). 

The scope of FSE concentrates on fast and secure primitives for symmetric cryptography, including the design and analysis of block ciphers, stream ciphers, encryption schemes, hash functions, message authentication codes, (cryptographic) permutations, authenticated encryption schemes, cryptanalysis and evaluation tools, and security issues and solutions regarding their implementation.

Since 2017, FSE also solicits submissions for Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) papers. These papers aim at reviewing and contextualizing the existing literature in a particular area in order to systematize the existing knowledge in that area. To be considered for publication, they must provide an added value beyond prior work, such as novel insights or reasonably questioning previous assumptions. 

Publication model

From 2017, FSE has moved to an open-access journal/conference hybrid model. Submitted articles undergo a journal-style reviewing process. Accepted papers are published in Diamond Open Access (free availability from day one) by the Ruhr University of Bochum in an issue of the journal IACR Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology (ToSC).

Each yearly FSE event consists of presentations of the articles accepted to ToSC, as well as invited talks and social activities. This new model has been established as a way to improve reviewing and publication quality while retaining a highly successful community event. For any further information, please view ToSC FAQ.

For FSE 2026, authors can submit papers to IACR Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology four times, every three months on a predictable schedule. Authors are notified of the decisions about two months after submission. In addition to accept and reject decisions, papers may be provided with "minor revision" decisions, in which case the paper is conditionally accepted and an assigned shepherd will verify if the changes are applied, or "major revision" decisions, in which case authors are invited to revise and resubmit their article to one of the following two submission deadlines (otherwise the paper will be treated as a new submission). We endeavor to assign the same reviewers to revised versions.

Papers accepted for publication before the end of January 2025 will be presented at that year's conference. Note that it is mandatory that accepted papers at the IACR Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology journal are presented at the corresponding FSE event.

Stipends

Students whose papers have been accepted and who present their talks at the conference will have their registration waived. A limited number of stipends are available to those unable to obtain funding to attend the conference. Students, whose papers are accepted and who will present the paper themselves, are encouraged to apply if such assistance is needed. Requests for stipends should be sent to the general chairs.