TrustAICyberSec 2025
2nd International Workshop on
Trusted Computing and Artificial Intelligence applied to Cybersecurity
Bologna, Italy
2 - 5 July 2025
co-located with IEEE ISCC 2025
2nd International Workshop on
Trusted Computing and Artificial Intelligence applied to Cybersecurity
Bologna, Italy
2 - 5 July 2025
co-located with IEEE ISCC 2025
Latest News
Keynote speech by Francesco Barchi July 2, 12:15 - 12:45, Room "Gloria 2"
Title
An OpenTitan Story: How Open Hardware can Drive the Next Generation of Secure Cyber-Physical Systems
Abstract
The growing need for secure and independent systems, particularly in the context of chip sovereignty, demands new hardware and software technologies. The rapid evolution of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and the proliferation of embedded and cyber-physical systems accentuate this challenge. Initiatives such as those led by the OpenHW Foundation and lowRISC have fostered a vibrant global community around the RISC-V architecture, which has become a driver for innovation in this field. This collaborative environment enables academia and industry alike to explore innovative hardware-software solutions. In this keynote, I will share insights from my research on integrating OpenTitan, an open-source RISC-V-based root-of-trust, into a Linux-capable System-on-Chip. Beyond leveraging OpenTitan’s secure boot capabilities, the open hardware nature of the project has allowed us to co-design hardware and software extensions, transforming it into both a secure cryptographic co-processor (accessible through OpenSSL) and a trusted environment for executing Edge AI models. Embedding an AI accelerator within a Root-of-Trust opens up exciting new possibilities, including attestation of AI model integrity and the implementation of deep learning–based context-aware Control Flow Integrity mechanisms. These advances illustrate how open hardware, AI and cybersecurity can converge to strengthen trust in next-generation computing platforms.
Junior Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Information Engineering "Guglielmo Marconi"
Universitá di Bologna
Researcher at the University of Bologna, he conducts his research in the field of embedded systems. His research interests focus, in particular, on using machine learning to optimise compilation phases and on optimisation problems for cyber-physical systems (CPS) composed of heterogeneous architectures.
He obtained his PhD in Computer Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Turin. During his PhD, he worked on mapping Spiking neural networks on the SpiNNaker neuromorphic platform by developing an optimised communication middleware for the same architecture.
He currently focuses his research on vertical applications of embedded architectures involving infrastructure monitoring and the development of security middleware for RISC-V architecture-based SoCs for cyber-physical systems.
Engaged in national and international research projects, he collaborates with several international research institutes.
Selected papers presented at the workshop will be invited to submit an extended version to the
Special Issue 'Cybersecurity Attacks and Defenses in Trust-based Networks',
Computer Networks (Elsevier) journal.
Please find out more details about this special issue at the dedicated link:
Call for Papers
Different applications running on various platforms and interconnected systems (including identity management, time distribution networks, or supply chains) must face increasingly complex cyberattacks and security incidents that are hard to detect, as they exploit both technical and non-technical aspects. For instance, most of the network traffic nowadays is encrypted, and thus difficult to analyze with content-based tools. At the same time, many attacks target (first) the end nodes, especially less-protected client devices, or systems with limited resources, like embedded systems, or the Internet of Things (IoT) and subsequently move (based on the permissions acquired) to more critical systems. Moreover, since the networks offer some protections through widely used security protocols, such as the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, dedicated attacks often address weaknesses in the implementation or installation of these protocols (on the server side), or exploit data after it has been received and cryptographically processed, i.e., while in use on the device. Last but not least, the human factor is fundamental in conducting or defending from many types of cyberattacks. Errors (accidental or intentional) could occur in the set-up, installation, configuration, deployment, and management of applications. The trusted computing and remote attestation techniques can create a solid ground for trusted execution environments for critical applications in different types of devices. On the other hand, artificial intelligence (AI) models may be applied to detect network-based security attacks or malware based on measured parameters.
The TrustAICyberSec 2025 workshop strives to gather contributions from researchers in network security including cloud and IoT security, security for embedded systems, trusted and confidential computing, and artificial intelligence areas, both academia and industry, working both on research and practical solutions for software and hardware security, or applications of trusted computing. Moreover, it aims to provide a forum for discussing the latest research trends regarding trusted computing, trusted environments for IoT devices, incident management, remote attestation, security for SDN (software-defined networking) & NFV (network functions virtualization), and cybersecurity attack detection. The objective is to acquire knowledge on the recent applications of trusted computing and machine learning for cybersecurity, provide recommendations for risk assessment, and ideas to develop innovative solutions for efficient defenses that are highly required by incident management and response teams or companies' security operation centers.
Important Dates
Author notification (extended, 2 round submission): March 26, 2025 April 15, 2025
Camera ready version: April 18, 2025
IEEE ISCC conference opening: July 2, 2025
Submission Guidelines
Review manuscripts should describe original work and should be no more than 7 pages in the IEEE double-column proceedings format, including tables, figures, and references. To download manuscript templates for IEEE conference proceedings use the following link: https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html.
Papers can be submitted directly to EDAS: link
Note that accepted papers of up to 6 pages will be published with no additional charge. Exceeding pages will be charged an extra fee. Papers exceeding 7 pages will not be accepted. At least one author of each accepted paper must register to the conference and present the paper. Only registered and presented papers will be published in the conference proceedings. Accepted papers will be included in the ISCC 2025 proceedings and will be submitted for inclusion to IEEE Xplore. The ISCC proceedings have been indexed in the past by ISI, DBLP, and Scopus. This makes the ISCC conference one of the publication venues with very high visibility and impact in both the Computer and Communications areas.
Topics of interest
We invite innovative and high-quality submissions focusing on, but not restricted to, any combination of the following areas:
Trusted computing, confidential computing
Remote attestation techniques
Trusted execution environments
Internet of Things (IoT) security
Machine learning applied to intrusion detection
Intrusion detection and prevention systems
Tools for analysis of security protocols
Machine learning for malware classification and detection
Software and hardware security
Cybersecurity incident management and response
Standards, guidelines, and certification
Methods and countermeasures for advanced cybersecurity attacks
Security vulnerability processing and risk assessment methodologies
Behaviour-based security
Social engineering attacks
General Chair(s)
Diana Gratiela Berbecaru, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Silvia Sisinni, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Technical Program Committee
Andrea Atzeni, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Cataldo Basile, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Alessandro Brighente, University of Padova, Italy
Samira Briongos, NEC Laboratories Europe, Germany
Alberto Carelli, LINKS Foundation, Italy
Maxime Compastié, Fondació i2CAT, Spain
Alessandra De Benedictis, Universitá Federico II di Napoli, Italy
Fabio De Gasperi, Universitá di Roma SAPIENZA, Italy
Edlira Dushku, Aalborg University, Denmark
Jitendra Kumar, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology Bhopal, India
Alessandra Rizzardi, University of Insubria, Italy
Annachiara Ruospo, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Juan Pablo Saenz Moreno, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Alessio Sacco, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Deepika Saxena, The University of Aizu, Japan
Simone Soderi, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy
Diana Gratiela Berbecaru
diana.berbecaru[at]polito.it
Silvia Sisinni
silvia.sisinni[at]polito.it