Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition
The nomination window for the 2026 Competition is now open.

 

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About the Competition

In order to encourage the development of the scientific foundations of cybersecurity, the National Security Agency (NSA) established The Annual Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition. NSA invites nominations of papers that show an outstanding contribution to cybersecurity science. A set of Distinguished Experts will review the nominations according to the criteria below. When possible, awardees will be invited to NSA to receive the award and present the winning paper to an audience of cybersecurity experts.

Nominations & Eligibility

Papers published in peer-reviewed journals, magazines, or technical conferences are eligible for nomination. The date of the publication must be between January 1st 2025 and December 31st 2025. Nominations include, in 500 words or less, a nomination statement describing the scientific contribution of the paper and explaining why this paper merits the award. A strong nomination statement is desired and will be used as part of the criteria when evaluating paper submissions. Nominated papers must be available in English and pdf format. Nominations must be submitted via this site. The nominator may not be an author or co-author of the nominated paper. If a paper includes a reviewer as a co-author it may not be considered for an award. Papers may come from any field if they advance foundational cybersecurity research. Fields traditionally relevant include but are not limited to: Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Economics, Engineering, Mathematics, Psychology, Risk, and Statistics. Cybersecurity refers to the protections of computer algorithms, software, systems and networks. The competition considers AI/ML technologies as relevant papers.  This includes papers that advance cybersecurity through the use of AI/ML, the cybersecurity of AI/ML, and defense against AI/ML enabled attackers. (Please refer to What is Security Science?)

For a set of potential sources for paper nominations, please see: https://sos-vo.org/sos/papercompetition/sources-2024. To suggest additional sources, please email BSCPC@cps-vo.org .

Evaluations

A set of distinguished experts will review the submitted nominations and provided individual assessments to the NSA Research Directorate.

The following individuals will serve as distinguished experts for the 14th Annual Competition:

DR. CARRIE GATES, Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center
MR. JEREMY EPSTEIN, Georgia Institute of Technology
DR. VIRGIL GILGOR, Carnegie Mellon University
DR. PAUL KOCHER, Independent Researcher
DR. STEPHAN MAGILL, Amazon AWS
DR. MÁIRE O'NEILL, Queen's University Belfast
DR. SEAN PEISERT, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
DR. FLORIAN TRAMÈR, ETH Zurich
MR. PHIL VENABLES, Google
DR. ARUN VISHWANATH, Cybersecurity Advisor
DR. LAURIE WILLIAMS, North Carolina State University
MS. MARY ELLEN ZURKO, MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Distinguished Expert Emeritus
DR. WHITFIELD DIFFIE, Cybersecurity Advisor
DR. DANIEL GEER, In-Q-Tel

For additional information on the review team.

The NSA Research Directorate recommended awardees to the NSA Director of Research, whose decision is final. Considerations in the evaluation of the nominated paper may include:

Scientific merit and significance of the work reported, the degree to which the paper exemplifies how to perform and report scientific research in cybersecurity.

Last Winning Paper

13th Annual Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition Winner

The National Security Agency (NSA) has awarded the 13th Annual Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition to “zkPi: Proving Lean Theorems in Zero-Knowledge". The winning paper, authored by Evan Laufer, Alex Ozdemir and Dan Boneh of Stanford University, proposes a groundbreaking method to use Zero-Knowledge Proofs to secure Lean Theorems. This is a method to protect the potentially sensitive information that is contained within lean theorems especially when used to very system properties. The paper was presented at the 2024 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 24). 

Dr. Adam Tagert, Technical Director of NSA’s Science of Security Program, praised the work: “This work continues to advance a very important field—the topic of formal methods. This breakthrough helps develop adoptable solutions where developers can protect sensitive intellectual property within an application, while users can have provable guarantees that the application meets its specifications. I hope people read this paper and build on its ideas, either by applying them directly or by starting new research projects to advance them further. Overall, the work was very well done and addresses a critical area of cybersecurity.”

A recognition ceremony is scheduled to occur during the HotSoS Conference (April 16, 2026) and people may register to attend for free at https://sos-vo.org/group/hotsos 

 

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Timeline

Submission Period Begins: January 15, 2026
Submission Period for Entries Ends: April 15, 2026 AOE
Evaluation Process for Entries Begins: April 20, 2026
Winners Notified: By October, 2026
Winners Announced: Fall 2026

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