Welcome to the IFIP WG 1.7 home page on Theoretical Foundations of Security Analysis and Design. The Working Group has been founded in 1999 with the main aims (among many other) of investigating the theoretical foundations of security, discovering and promoting new areas of application of theoretical techniques in computer security and supporting the systematic use of formal techniques in the development of security related applications.

IFIP WG 1.7 is a working group of the Technical Committee 1 (TC1) of IFIP, which promotes activities in the area of Foundations of Computer Science.

The main research topics relevant for the Working Group include:

• formal definition and verification of the various aspects of security:confidentiality, integrity, authentication and availability;
• new theoretically-based techniques for the formal analysis and design of cryptographic protocols and their manifold applications (e.g., electronic commerce);
• information flow modelling and its application to the theory of confidentiality policies, composition of systems, and covert channel analysis;
• formal techniques for the analysis and verification of mobile code;
• formal analysis and design for prevention of denial of service.

See here the text of the proposal.

Meetings

• The first meeting of the IFIP WG 1.7 has been held in Royal Halloway on 3 December 1999.
• The second meeting of the IFIP WG 1.7 has been held in Geneva (CH), UniDufour, on 8 July 2000 during the first WITS workshop.
• Subsequent meetings have been held in conjunction with WITS workshops (see below)

WITS

The Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Security (WITS) is the annual open event of IFIP WG 1.7. Traditionally, it has been located for two consecutive years in Europe and one in the United States. Submissions are open to anyone working on the theory of computer security.  The program will encourage discussion among all attendees, both during and after the scheduled presentations. The list of WITS past and future editions follows:

• WITS'00 First Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Security. 7-8 July 2000, University of Geneva, Switzerland.
  • Co-located with ICALP '00,
• WITS'02 Second ACM SIGPLAN and IFIP WG 1.7 Workshop  on Issues in the Theory of Security. Portland, Oregon, USA, January 14-15, 2002.
  • Co-located with  POPL'02
• WITS'03 Third IFIP WG 1.7, ACM SIGPLAN and GI FoMSESS Workshop  on Issues in the Theory of Security; April 5 - 6, 2003, Warsaw, Poland.
  • co-located with ETAPS'03
• WITS'04 Fourth IFIP WG 1.7, ACM SIGPLAN and GI FoMSESS Workshop  on Issues in the Theory of Security; April 3 - 4, 2004, Barcelona, Spain
  • co-located with  ETAPS'04
• WITS'05 Fifth IFIP WG 1.7, ACM SIGPLAN and GI FoMSESS Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Security.  January 10-11, 2005, Long Beach, California.
  • Co-located with POPL'05
• WITS '06 Sixth IFIP WG 1.7, GI FoMSESS Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Security;  March 25–26 2006, Vienna, Austria
  • co-located with ETAPS 2006
• WITS '07 Seventh IFIP WG 1.7, ACM SIGPLAN (pending) and GI FoMSESS Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Security;  March 24 - April 1, 2007, Braga, Portugal
  • co-located with ETAPS 2007
• FCS-ARSPA-WITS'08 Joint Workshop on Foundations of Computer Security, Automated Reasoning for Security Protocol Analysis and Issues in the Theory of Security; June 21-22 2008, Pittsburgh, PA, USA _NEW!
  • co-located with LICS 2008 and CSF 2008