With the increasing prevalence of connected, intelligent systems in industry, mobility, energy, and smart cities, the demands on their cybersecurity are also growing. Today, security concepts must go far beyond traditional protection mechanisms and consider the entire lifecycle of a system – not only its development and operation, but also its maintenance.
These issues will be addressed by the 2nd Workshop on Whole-Lifecycle Security for Smart Systems: Methods and Tools (LIFESEC), which will take place as part of the 12th IEEE International Conference on Smart Computing (IEEE SmartComp 2026) on June 22, 2026, in Messina, Italy.
The Workshop Focus: Security Throughout the Entire System Lifecycle of Smart Systems
The LIFESEC workshop addresses the question of how security can be achieved throughout the entire lifecycle of smart systems – from security by design and compliance to EU regulations.
The main topics of the workshop are:
- Security by design and holistic security methods
- Lifecycle security for smart systems and IoT
- Automated compliance and certification procedures
- AI-supported security tools and digital twins
- Supply chain security and secure software supply chains
- Support for regulatory requirements such as the Cybersecurity Act, GDPR, and Cyber Resilience Act
The goal is to develop robust, scalable, and traceable security concepts that meet both technical and regulatory requirements.
Call for Papers: Submissions on Security-related Factors of Smart Systems Are Welcome!
As part of the workshop, whole lifecycle security experts and other enthusiasts are invited to submit scientific and application-oriented papers.
Relevant topics include:
- Access control management of devices in systems
- Management of updates and patching at scale and in different environments
- Modelling of security threats and effects in terms of risks to stakeholders in cyber-physical situations
- Security throughout the lifecycle of the IoT/CPS
- Holistic methodologies for whole-lifecycle security management and how components and tools interoperate within such a methodology
- Methodologies adherent to the EU Cyber Resilience Act
- Support for current relevant regulation, e.g. Cybersecurity Act, GDPR, Cyber Resilience Act
- Security by design and / or security in operation
- Certification & security evaluation
- Security and Digital Twins
- New solutions for secure bootstrapping and commissioning
- Tools and methods providing assurances about the hardware / software supply chain – e.g. provenance assurance of upstream libraries / components
- Audit methods, plus auditable data structures and tools to support whole-lifecycle security assurance and device provenance
- Dynamic scanning and detection tools, e.g. advanced vulnerability / attack / anomaly detection tools
- Vulnerability scanning tools for hardware and software
- Software-bill-of-materials generation from binaries
- AI-assisted tools for security testing
- Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity and Cybersecurity for Artificial Intelligence
- Security Assurance for Quantum Systems and Quantum Computing Resilience
- Certification of AI and Quantum Systems
- Privacy in Computer Vision
The deadline for submissions is March 9, 2026!
Please register here.
Accepted contributions will be presented during the workshop and subsequently published.
Target group
The workshop is aimed at experts from research and practice who deal with cybersecurity for smart systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cyber-physical systems (CPS). It offers a platform for exchange between science and industry.
The LIFESEC workshop is organized by the participating institutions of several Horizon Europe projects, including TELEMETRY, EMERALD, and COBALT, in which our institute is also involved. The aim is to exploit synergies between ongoing EU projects and to bring together current research with industrial requirements.
👉 Registration and further information:
https://telemetry-project.eu/ieee-smartcomp-2026/
Author
Contact: christian.banse@aisec.fraunhofer.de
