MAgiCS Workshop 2026

Migration and Agility in Cryptographic Systems

Co-located with Eurocrypt 2026. as an affiliated workshop.
Date: 10 May 2026 · Location: Città Universitaria, Sapienza University of Rome

The Workshop on Migration and Agility in Cryptographic Systems (MAgiCS) will take place on the 10th of May 2026 at the Città Universitaria (University Campus) of Sapienza University of Rome, co-located with Eurocrypt 2026. MAgiCS 2026 focuses on the topic of migration and the transition of cryptographic systems. The workshop aims to bridge the gap between theoretical concepts and practical processes for their application in real-world scenarios.

Accepted papers will be published in a Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) proceedings volume by Springer.

Last updated:

About

Abstract

Cryptographic migration, specifically in the post-quantum setting, is a challenging and, in practice, mainly unsolved task. The problem sits at the intersection of applied IT and cryptographic engineering and addresses two fundamentally different audiences: practitioners who actually work in data centers and cryptographic engineers who design and implement cryptographic systems.
Despite advances in cryptographic technologies, the process of migrating existing systems and IT infrastructures to new standards presents significant challenges. Rapid transition appears to require a strong incentive to adopt new technology. The issue of migration is particularly prominent in the current transition towards post-quantum cryptography, which aims to protect data against future quantum computing threats. Due to its practical relevance, at least for high-security applications, there are numerous practical post-quantum migrations going on worldwide. Despite these worldwide activities, there is comparatively little research on the general structure of migration projects and how to suitably model cryptographic migration. In fact, many people consider migrating software and hardware components as a best-practice task.
So, people legitimately ask “Where Is the Research on Cryptographic Transition and Agility?” as David Ott did at RWC 2022. The proposed Eurocrypt co-located workshop on Migration and Agility in Cryptographic Systems shall serve as an international nucleus for the research community addressing formalisms for cryptographic migration.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Methodology and concepts supporting crypto-agility
  • Maturity model for crypto-agility
  • Software tooling for crypto-agility
  • Hardware accelerator design for classical asymmetric and post-quantum cryptography
  • Protocol design supporting crypto-agility
  • Fail-safe protocols for crypto-agility
  • Migration models and concepts
  • Key management, replacement and lifecycle concepts & protocols
  • Formal models and verification tools
  • Hybrid solutions (classic + PQC / multiple PQC schemes / QKD + PQC)
  • Solutions for secure legacy support
  • Attacks on hybrid schemes
  • Identification of the use of legacy cryptography

Paper Submission:

Submitted papers must be original, unpublished, anonymous, and not submitted to journals or other conferences/workshops that have proceedings. Submissions must be written in English, strictly follow Springer CCIS format (with default margins, font size, etc.) and should be at most 18 pages, excluding only references. Papers not meeting these guidelines risk rejection without consideration. All submissions will be blind-refereed. Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper. The link to the submission portal will be announced soon.

Preliminary

  • Paper submission: February 1st, 2026
  • Notification of acceptance: March 22nd, 2026
  • Camera‑Ready Version: March 29th, 2026

Current Program Committee:

  • Thomas ATTEMA (TNO and CWI)
  • Shivam BASHIN (Nanyang Technological University)
  • Silvio DRAGONE (IBM Research Europe - Zürich)
  • Stefan EHLEN (BSI)
  • Stefan-Lukas GAZDAG (genua)
  • Michael HUTTER (University of the Bundeswehr Munich and PQShield)
  • Michael KASPER (Fraunhofer Singapore)
  • Stefan KATZENBEISSER (University Passau)
  • Juliane KRÄMER (Universität Regensburg)
  • Volker KRUMMEL (Utimaco)
  • Manfred LOCHTER (BSI)
  • Daniel LOEBENBERGER (Fraunhofer AISEC)
  • Frank MORGNER (Bundesdruckerei)
  • Chris MÜLLER (Deutsche Bahn)
  • Ludovic PERRET (EPITA and Sorbonne University)
  • Hao QIN (National University Singapore)
  • Melissa ROSSI (CryptoExperts)
  • Marc STÖTTINGER (Hochschule RheinMain)
  • Alexander WIESMAIER (Hochschule Darmstadt)

Venue

Città Universitaria (University Campus), Sapienza University of Rome.

Eurocrypt 2026 host city and campus details TBA.

Organizers

  • Marc Stöttinger

    RheinMain University of Applied Sciences

    Focus: embedded systems security, side‑channel and fault attack resistance.

    show more

    Marc Stöttinger worked as a research assistant at the Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt and received his PhD in 2012 from the Department of Computer Science at Technische Universität Darmstadt in the field of side-channel analysis and hardware security. Following his PhD, he worked for two years at the "PACE" lab at Temasek Laboratories@NTU in Singapore as a research assistant and later as a principal investigator. At the end of 2014, he returned to Germany and worked as a "Senior Expert Automotive Embedded Hardware Cyber Security" in the "Security and Privacy Competence Center" at Continental AG. At the end of 2020, he left Continental to join the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Homeland Security as a "Senior IT Analyst," providing second- and third-level support in the area of operational IT security. In January 2022, he was appointed as a full professor of computer engineering and security at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences. His research interests focus on the security of embedded systems, particularly the secure implementation of security primitives such as post-quantum cryptographic algorithms. This includes investigating implementation resistance against attacks like side-channel attacks and fault attacks.

  • Daniel Loebenberger

    Fraunhofer AISEC

    Focus: applied post‑quantum cryptography and quantum‑safe infrastructures.

    show more

    Daniel Loebenberger received his doctorate in cryptography from the University of Bonn in 2012 and worked for several years as an IT security expert with a focus on cryptography in the high-security sector in Germany, with a focus on post-quantum migration of next-generation firewalls based on OpenBSD. In January 2019, he was appointed Fraunhofer Endowed Professor of Cybersecurity at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC, where he heads the "Secure Infrastructure" department. Daniel’s research focuses on topics of applied post-quantum cryptography and quantum-safe infrastructures. Daniel has organized several workshops and conferences with the German Informatics Society, of which he is an active member.