IHSAA21: Intel Hardware Security Academic Award 2021 |
Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ihsaa21 |
Submission deadline | April 3, 2021 |
Program Summary
The security of our products is an ongoing commitment. As part of that commitment, we support academic and independent research into the prevention, detection, and mitigation of potential security threats through programs such as Intel’s bug bounty, Intel Labs academic and faculty research grants, and more.
Intel’s Product Assurance and Security Group (IPAS) is announcing a new award program (the “Intel Corporation Hardware Security Academic Award” or the “Program”) aimed at fostering innovative research into technologies, solutions, tools, and methodologies to enhance the industry’s ability to deliver secure and trustworthy foundational technologies.
The Program will recognize the authors of two recently published papers that contain outstanding novel research with a meaningful impact on the hardware security ecosystem and industry, including Intel’s products.
We are pleased to invite academic researchers to review these guidelines and make a submission. We will grant two research awards in the amounts of $75,000 (first prize) and $50,000 (second prize). Awards will be paid to the lead author’s university, in the form of a research gift, per the guidance below. Winners of the awards will be invited to attend an Intel security conference to present their work to hundreds of Intel engineers and executives. Limited to two presenters for each award.
Research Topics
While all recently (January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020) published papers demonstrating innovative research into architecture, design, development, and validation that advance product security are welcome, the following focus categories are highly encouraged:
- Emerging usages, threat analysis, systemic mitigations, and security enhancements that strengthen cloud-to-edge computing, accelerant, and communication solutions.
- Innovations in scalable, automated tools and methodologies for hardware design and verification that are effective in addressing common security weaknesses, significantly improving product quality and assurance efficiency.
- Architectural, micro-architecture, and circuit innovations that improve resiliency and reliability of silicon and electronics against transient faults.
- Use of analytics and machine learning to improve product security capabilities and robustness.
- Novel techniques that enhance safety-critical systems verification and counter adversarial behavior.
- Groundbreaking advancements in fundamental security capabilities (e.g., next generation cryptographic techniques)
Who Qualifies?
Any full time, tenured or tenure track (or equivalent) faculty member involved in research may make a submission. Intel cannot, however, consider submissions by individuals residing in, or affiliated with, an academic institution located in a country or territory subject to comprehensive U.S. trade sanctions.
What Qualifies?
All submissions must reflect only completed research which was first published or presented publicly between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020, and that has the potential to be disruptive to product security in the areas outlined above. All submissions must be made using the EasyChair CFP submission system (“EasyChair”) and include the following information:
- Short description (no more than 400 words each) of:
- Research focus and techniques
- Brief summary of current state-of-the-art
- Novel contribution
- Potential impact to the industry, ecosystem, and Intel’s products and technologies
- Prior and future relevant work, if applicable
- Alignment with the above-listed “focus categories”
- Details on:
- Prior awards and recognition of the research
- Accepted conference (the paper needs to have been accepted, peer-reviewed and published or presented publicly between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020)
- Full paper (camera ready in PDF format, as submitted and accepted to conference or journal following peer review).
- Letter of recommendation from a domain expert supporting the nomination (no more than 1 pages in length).
- Curriculum vitae of applicable authors.
- Affiliation and organization details including relevant tax/gift information and administrative contacts for the submitter’s academic institution.
Awardees will be selected by a committee at Intel. The committee will examine, among other factors, the viability, novelty, originality, and relevance of the submissions with a focus on demonstrating significant contribution and impact on the hardware security ecosystem and Intel products. The committee retains full discretion on selection of the award winners, and the awardees will be required to sign an award acceptance letter.
Notifications are expected by mid-April 2021, and the awards are expected to be presented at a ceremony with Intel engineers and executives during an Intel security conference in May 2021 (to be held virtually).
Award Details
One-time awards of $75,000 (first prize) and $50,000 (second prize) payable to the awardee’s academic institution to be used at the discretion of the awardee’s university for research or curriculum development support (class material, conferences sponsorship, travel expenses, computer lab infrastructure, web site development, textbooks, etc.). For winning papers with authors from multiple institutions, the award will be granted to the university of the first named academic author.
Application Deadline
Deadline for application has been extended to April 3, 2021, 11:59 PM, PT. All submissions must be fully submitted in EasyChair.
Additional Terms, Notices, and Disclaimers
Intel’s decisions will be final in all matters relating to this Program, including whether or not to grant an award and the interpretation of these additional terms, notices, and disclaimers and the guidelines above (collectively, “Terms and Conditions”). By making a submission, applicants affirm that they have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions.
- Awards must comply with applicable U.S. and international laws, regulations and policies.
- Intel is authorized to evaluate submissions, to consult with outside experts, in evaluating submissions, and to grant or deny awards using criteria determined by Intel to be appropriate and at Intel’s sole discretion. Intel’s decisions will be final in all matters relating to this Program, and applicants agree not to challenge any such decisions.
- Implementation and management of this Program and associated awards is subject to change at any time without notice to applicants or awardees and is at the complete discretion of Intel.
- Awardees are responsible for confirming that acceptance of any awards will not be in violation of any university policy regarding such awards and that acceptance of any award is not in exchange for promotion or influence regarding any of Intel’s commercial activities, products, services, or the adoption of Intel-related standards.
- Neither Intel nor the applicant is obligated to enter into a business transaction as a result of the submission. Intel is under no obligation to review or consider any submission.
- Any information collected as part of this award will be used for the administration of the Program. This may include sharing of any submitted information within Intel (and contractors) for purposes of selecting awardees, planning visits, public relations (with prior approval), or other purposes reasonably related to the Program. Any information collected is also subject to Intel’s privacy policy found at www.intel.com/privacy.
- Awards granted in connection with this Program will be subject to terms and conditions contained in the research gift agreement (or, in some cases, other mechanisms) pursuant to which the award funding will be provided. Applicants understand and acknowledge that they will need to agree to these terms and conditions to receive an award.
Frequently Asked Questions
- If a paper was first published prior to 2020 but also included in a 2020 special edition publication, could it be eligible for this CFP?
- No. All submissions must reflect only completed research which was first published or presented publicly between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020.
- My paper was accepted for a 2021 conference but was pre-published as a part of the conference proceedings in 2020. Should I consider this a 2020 or 2021 publication?
- Some conferences may choose to pre-publish accepted papers; however, the industry does not observe a common practice. For simplicity and clarity, please consider the relevant conference date to be your publication date when determining eligibility.
- Can faculty members make more than one submission?
- Yes, faculty members can make multiple submissions into the CFP.
- Is curriculum vitae from every author necessary for submission?
- Curriculum vitae (CV) of applicable authors is required. In the case of papers authored by more than two researchers, only two CVs are needed for submission.
- Can an Intel employee provide my letter of recommendation?
- No, Intel employees should not provide the letter of recommendation.
To ensure applicants have adequate time to apply this feedback, we have extended the deadline to April 3, 2021, 11:59 PM, PT.
Contact
All questions about submissions should be sent to the program committee.