About CANSec

The Central Area Networking and Security Workshop (CANSec), which was formerly known as the Greater Kansas Area Security Workshop (KanSec), aims to bring together researchers and practitioners in networking and security-related fields in the central area of the US.

Since spring of 2012, the workshop has attracted attendees from Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, etc. We have also invited speakers from Texas, Indiana, Colorado, South Carolina, Virginia, etc. The goal of the CANSec workshop is to provide a forum to present research in all areas related to computer networking and security, as well as to promote interactions and collaborations between academia and industry. The workshop was originally organized semi-annually in 2012-2016. Since 2016, the CANSec community decides to change it to an annual event to encourage high-quality work to be presented and demonstrated in the workshop.

Starting from 2014, the CANSec workshop added a Cyber-Defense Competition component, called CANSec Invitational, to its Fall events.The goal of the competition is to provide students with a platform to apply theoretical knowledge into practice, and to obtain hands-on cyber security experiences. It is a one-day competition, in which student teams will be asked to oversee a small corporate network, to manage all critical services, and to defend against external attacks. Scoring will be primarily based on the availability of the services, and how the attacks and injects are handled.

Join the CANSec community

You are encouraged to join our Google Group to receive announcements, news, and updates regarding the CANSec workshop.

Steering committee