Pre-Eminent APWG Cybecrime Conference Entering Third Decade in Publication - Imagining Cybercrime's Demise

CAMBRIDGE, MA / ACCESS Newswire / June 1, 2026 / Chairs of the APWG's 21st annual Symposium on Electronic Crime Research announced today that the conference would extend its deadline for peer-review submissions to June 12, responding to a number of requests from eCrime's global community of cybercrime researchers.

APWG eCrime 2026 begins the third decade of the symposium's pioneering research with an expanded scope from cyber (digital) crimes to include those manifesting abuse of physical spaces, commercial enterprises, scientific or military facilities, roadways, critical infrastructure and devices (e.g., IoT, electro-mechanical controllers, sensors, etc.).

IMPORTANT DATES:

• Full Paper registration / submission due: 12 June 2026

• Notification of acceptance: 20 July 2026

• Conference: 2-6 November 2026

• Camera-ready paper due: 30 November 2026

The 2026 APWG Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (APWG eCrime) at Lisbon (Nov. 2-6) will be receiving the wisdom and insights of industrial titans, industrial and academic researchers, national governments, multilateral organizations and cyber cops from around the world who are holding the line against the scourge of cybercrime today.

Full details for submitting investigators are here: https://apwg.org/events/ecrime2026

Peer-reviewed submissions are lodged here: ecrime2026.hotcrp.com For peer-reviewed paper submissions in 2025, please register an account, then use the 'New Submission' option at: ecrime2026.hotcrp.com

APWG eCrime 2026 Lisboa also solicits industrial laboratory research submissions for its General Sessions during the symposium. The deadline for General Session presentation proposals is Sept. 15 and can be submitted to [email protected].

SUBMISSION TOPICS INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

• Artificial Intelligence as criminal co-conspirator - and as defensive collaborator

• Addressing challenges of cybercrime's increasing complexity (e.g., digital infrastructures, crime-fighting/forensic techniques, and the structure of the crimes themselves)

• Detecting and/or mitigating eCrime (e.g., online fraud, malware, phishing, ransomware, etc.)

• Behavioral and psychosocial aspects of cybercrime victimization - and prevention

• Measuring and modeling of cybercrime

• Economics of cybercrime

• Cybercrime payload delivery strategies and countermeasures (e.g., spam, mobile apps, social engineering, etc.)

• Public Policy and Law for cybercrime

• Cryptocurrency and related cybercrimes - and forensic tools and techniques for cryptocurrency-related cybercrimes

• Case studies of current cybercrime attack methods, (e.g., phishing, malware, rogue antivirus programs, pharming, crimeware, botnets, and emerging techniques)

• Detecting/preventing abuse of internet infrastructure to neutralize cybercrimes

• Detecting/isolating cybercrime gangs' and attendant money-laundering enterprises

• Cybercrime's evolution in specific verticals (e.g., financial services, e-commerce, health, energy & supplies)

• Cybercriminal cloaking techniques - and counter-cloaking tools and approaches

• Design and evaluation of UI/UXs to neutralize fraud and enhance user security

Call for Papers

Beyond soliciting research into cybercrime that inflicts financial losses, as the symposium has since 2006, eCrime 2026's chairs are particularly interested in papers that address challenges in: cyber-physical systems and operational technologies; artificial intelligence; and the interaction between different system layers (such as socio-technical systems) that are employed or abused by cybercriminals for profit - and for advancement of larger criminal enterprises.

Solicited Topics Consonant With eCrime 2026's Theme Include:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) as criminal co-conspirator and defensive collaborator, such as:

• Malicious AI agents employed to perform enhanced malware polymorphism, agentic spearphishing, reconnaissance, etc. Development and maintenance of criminal co-pilots and the future of human-machine teaming, including hybridized human-crimebot cyber gangs.

• Are malicious AI tools lowering the skills barrier to commit more advanced cybercrimes?

• Adversarial AI (attacks directly against AIs and machine learning systems) as it relates to the furtherance of cybercrime or cyber-physical cybercrime - especially agents employed in security operations

• Defensive AI Agents deployed as cybersecurity operations managers and (autonomous and semi-autonomous) counter-cybercrime managers

• Design, deployment and assessment of multi-agent environments (MAEs) for enhancing resilience of infrastructure and systems to cybercrime

• Design, deployment and assessment of defences related to AI systems themselves (jailbreaks, injections, etc.)

• Actual, emerging or potential risks from AI systems deployed to animate cybercrimes against people, operational systems, IoT technologies, or physical spaces and objects

• Abuse of cyber-physical systems and operational technologies and downstream manipulation (extant, emerging or potential) for furtherance of crimes with physical manifestations, including:

• Drone and robot hijacking and weaponization; Criminal abuses and weaponization of medical and surgical systems;

• Criminal abuses and weaponization of IoT for domestic and commercial targeting;

• Criminal abuses and weaponization of autonomous vehicles and delivery robots;

• AI and machine-learning system security to mitigate threats posed by advanced cybercriminal algorithms - and to guard against strategically misinforming and abusing them for criminal enterprisesNew research on policy, regulation, and law as they pertain to cybercrime of all types

AI and machine-learning system security to mitigate threats posed by advanced cybercriminal algorithms - and to guard against strategically misinforming and abusing them for criminal enterprises New research on policy, regulation, and law as they pertain to cybercrime of all types

Topics of general interest for submissions to eCrime 2026 are listed below, under the heading 'Solicited Research Topics for APWG eCrime 2026.'

Important Dates (papers and training session):

Full Paper Registration / Submission of full draft due: 12 June

Training Session Proposals / full draft due: 15 June 2026

Notification of Acceptance / Shepherding decisions: 20 July 2026

Shepherding: 20 July to 31 August

Conference: November: 2 - 6, 2026

Camera-ready paper due: November 30th, 2026

The selected peer-reviewed papers will be presented at the eCrime symposium along with panels and talks in General Sessions from other researchers selected from industrial and academic research centers correspondent with the APWG.

General Information eCrime sessions and proceedings are in English. The Lisbon venue is the Intercontinental Lisbon. Room reservation link to come in a later edition of this CFP:

Please contact the APWG eCrime organizers for any other details via email at [email protected].

Discounts Students requiring discounts should contact symposium managers at [email protected] IEEE members and partners requiring discounts should contact symposium managers at [email protected] Discount codes are also available for university researchers, government personnel and law enforcement professionals from pubic-sector agencies as well as for IEEE members. Please contact the APWG eCrime organizers for details via email at: [email protected].

Solicited Research Topics for APWG eCrime 2026 Since 2006, APWG eCrime has cast its call for papers in relevant research disciplines, focusing in large part on financial crimes that abuse Internet technologies and IT to victimize users, enterprises and their brands.

APWG eCrime also specifically solicits original research on cyber-physical systems and operational technologies abused in the furtherance of any kind of crime: cyber (digital) or manifested in physical spaces, such as homes, enterprises, roadways, public spaces and critical infrastructure.

eCrime's curators define these cybercrimes as those that exploit, disrupt, or manipulate cyber-physical systems or operational technologies - systems that integrate control, feedback, and communication mechanisms across digital, mechanical, and biological domains.

The selected peer-reviewed papers will be presented at the eCrime symposium along with panels and talks in General Sessions from other researchers selected from industrial and academic research centers correspondent with the APWG.

Alongside this expanded topic spectrum, eCrime 2026 Lisbon is also soliciting papers that speak to the following topics and issues: Economic foundations of: cybercrime cyber-physical crimes; and other abuses of IT for criminal enterprise

• Behavioural and psychosocial aspects of cybercrime; and cyber-physical system victimization and prevention

• Emerging technological exposures, vulnerabilities, and risks

• Architectural vulnerabilities (of products, operational technologies, infrastructures and cyber-physical systems) that advantage criminal actors

• New or improved techniques to detect and respond to cybercrime and cyber-physical crimes of all types

• How to accurately measure and understand the health and resilience of systems, networks, infrastructures and users against cybercrime

• Addressing challenges of cybercrime's increasing complexity (e.g. digital infrastructures, crime-fighting/forensic techniques, and the structure of the crimes themselves)

• Measuring and modelling of cybercrime/cyber-physical system crimes and related criminal enterprises for operational protection routines

• Measuring and modelling of cybercrime/cyber-physical system crimes and related criminal enterprises for informing rational underwriting instrumentation developed by commercial insurers

• Analysis and modelling of the cybercrime and abuse risk landscape Cybercrime/cyber-physical system crime payload delivery strategies and countermeasures (e.g. spam, mobile apps, social engineering, etc.)

• Application of public policy and law for the programmatic suppression of common cybercrimes; crimes against or involving cyber-physical systems and related abuses

• Policy and legal challenges as they relate to actually developing and sustaining anti-cybercrime practices and policies

• Cryptocurrency crimes and related cybercrimes, and the forensic tools and techniques required to measure, prevent, and counter these crimes

• Case studies of current cybercrime/cyber-physical system attack methods (e.g. phishing, malware, rogue antivirus programs, pharming, ransomware, crimeware, botnets, and emerging techniques)

• Detecting and preventing abuse of internet infrastructure to neutralize cybercrimes/cyber-physical system crimes and abuses

• Detecting and isolating cybercriminal gangs and their money laundering routines and enterprises

• Cybercrime's evolution in specific verticals (e.g. financial services, e-commerce, health and energy, etc.)

• Cybercriminal cloaking techniques, and counter-cloaking tools and approaches

• Design and evaluation of UI/UXs to neutralize fraud and enhance user security and cybercrime awareness

• Novel methods for measuring cybercrime and related abuses for development of defensive routines and programs

AUTHORS' GUIDANCE

eCrime has adopted the IEEE publication format. Submissions should be in English, in PDF format with all fonts embedded, and formatted using the IEEE conference template, which can be found at https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html.

Authors of accepted papers must present them and register at the event.

For paper submissions, use the New Submission option at: ecrime2026.hotcrp.com

MEDIA CONTACT:
Peter Cassidy: +1 617 669 1123 / [email protected]

(c) 2026 APWG Studios

SOURCE: ANTI-PHISHING WORKING GROUP