Track Abstract

Software protection is a cybersecurity pillar in the current distribution of software releases. It safeguards against cyber threats, preserves the economic value of intellectual property, and ensures compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. Indeed, the protection of software and of the included Intellectual Property against Man-At-The-End attacks, where the attacker has complete control of the machine running the target software, remains an open problem, with many challenges to be addressed and offering a fertile ground for researchers. Furthermore, the potential impact of AI and ML on reverse engineering can revolutionize this process, which is currently undertaken manually. This calls for further innovation in the software protection field to ensure software resilience against AI-enhanced attacks in the upcoming future.

Main Topics

Software protection has a clear importance in the modern software industry. Commercial digital products frequently employ various protection techniques to safeguard intellectual properties and confidential data. Despite its widespread usage, current research is still far from providing highly resilient protections in MATE (Man-At-The-End) scenarios and methods for properly assessing their resistance against attacks. Thus, the SPIRIT track welcomes new speculative ideas that foster discussion and improve software protection's state of the art. Following, we provide a non-exhaustive list of research areas and specific topics.

Software protection techniques

This area encompasses any method or technology for safeguarding software from unauthorized access, distribution, or modification. These techniques aim to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of software, protect intellectual property, prevent piracy, and perform digital rights management and license checking. Some topics include but are not limited to:

• code and data obfuscation

• software diversity

• software tampering detection, avoidance, and reaction

• software similarity and plagiarism detection

• software licensing and watermarking

• hardware-based software protection

• software attestation with or without hardware root of trust

Software protection analysis & reverse engineering 

This subject involves examining and understanding the security mechanisms embedded within protected software to uncover potential vulnerabilities or how to bypass its software protections. These techniques are used to deconstruct software code and study how protection methods are implemented or can be undone. Some topics include but are not limited to:

• reversing methods against specific software protection techniques

• applications of AI systems for attacking or improving software protections

• software security metrics and evaluation methodologies

• empirical studies on the effectiveness of software protections

• threat modeling and formal methods for software protection

Applied software protections 

This field investigates the practical applications of software protections in the industry. These protections are crucial in maintaining the value of intellectual property, ensuring compliance with licensing agreements, and protecting both developers and users from security threats and financial loss. Some topics include but are not limited to:

• code and data protection in video games, mass media, and streaming services

• software protection techniques applied to IoT, mobile, and cloud scenarios

• best practices from and for the industry

• build process integration of software protection tools

Submission Guidelines

Paper Format

https://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2025/authorkit.php 

Submission Link

https://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2025/submission.php 

Post-submission Initiatives

The Track Chairs, in conjunction with the Track Program Committee, will select the best paper, and its authors will be awarded a physical (paper) and digital certificate.

Papers that receive positive reviews but are not accepted due to space limitations will be invited to a poster session. The length of poster papers is 2 pages (included in the registration) + 1 page (at an extra charge).

After the conference, authors of top-quality papers may be invited to submit their work in an extended form to a special issue of a Scopus-indexed journal.

Important Dates

• September 20, 2024 October 4, 2024 October 13, 2024 Submission of regular papers and SRC research abstracts

• October 30, 2024 November 14, 2024 November 20, 2024 Notification of papers/SRC acceptance/rejection

• November 29, 2024 Camera-ready copies of accepted papers/SRC

• December 6, 2024 Author registration due date

• Tuesday April 1, 2025 SRC Posters Exhibit

• Wednesday April 2, 2025 Non-SRC Posters Program

• Thursday April 3, 2025 SRC Oral Presentations

ACM's Key Policies

• Privacy Policy

• Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

• Policy Against Harassment at ACM Activities

In participating SAC 2025, you acknowledge ACM's Policy Against Harassment at ACM Activities and agree that behavior such as the following will constitute grounds for actions against you:

• Abusive action directed at an individual, such as threats, intimidation, or bullying

• Racism, homophobia, or other behavior that discriminates against a group or class of people

• Sexual harassment of any kind, such as unwelcome sexual advances or words/actions of a sexual nature

If you are involved in or witness any such incident, please inform the event organizers.

SAC No-Show Policy

Paper registration is mandatory to include papers and posters in the conference proceedings. An author or a proxy attending SAC MUST present the paper. This requirement applies to all accepted papers, posters, and invited SRC submissions for inclusion in the ACM digital library. In case of personal circumstances preventing physical attendance, online presentation is allowed, ensuring the paper's inclusion in the ACM digital library.

Copyright Notice

As instructed in the author kit, authors will receive an email from ACM that contains info on how to complete and submit the copyright. The email from ACM contains a link to the copyright webpage where authors will need to check the title and author names of their paper, correct them if wrong, and then submit the completed copyright form to the ACM system by clicking a submit button. Authors need to upload the final camera-ready copies (papers, posters, and SRC abstracts) to the START system so that they are verified for inclusion in the proceedings.

Student Research Competition (SRC)

Students are invited to submit research abstracts (maximum of 2 pages in ACM camera-ready format) following the instructions published on the SAC 2025 website.

Authors of selected abstracts will be able to give poster and oral presentations of their work and compete for three top-winning places. The SRC committee will evaluate and select first, second, and third-place winners. The winners will receive medals and cash awards and be announced during the conference banquet. Invited students receive SRC travel support and can apply to the SIGAPP Student Travel Award Program (STAP) for additional travel support.

Submission link: https://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2025/submission_src.php