NTU Singapore Hosts 32nd Fast Software Encryption International Conference (FSE 2026) alongside Two Affiliated Events

The 32nd Fast Software Encryption (FSE 2026) International Conference was held in Singapore from 23 to 27 March 2026. This marks the first time in 13 years that FSE returns to Singapore. FSE is one of the seven flagship conferences of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) and is widely regarded as the leading academic venue for research in symmetric cryptography. In the week preceding FSE 2026, two affiliated satellite events were held at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore: the 12th Asian Workshop on Symmetric Key Cryptography (ASK 2026) and the 2nd Spring School on Symmetric Cryptography (SoSC 2026).

The conference was co-chaired by Dr. Shichang Wang from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS) at NTU, Singapore, and Professor Shiyao Chen from Shandong University, China. Professor Jian Guo, a member of the IACR Board of Directors and faculty at SPMS, NTU Singapore, served as Advisor to General Chair.

Conference welcome reception at FSE 2026.

Conference opening at FSE 2026.  

IACR plaque at FSE 2026.  

Spanning five days, FSE 2026 brought together the global cryptography community for in-depth discussion of the latest advances in symmetric cipher analysis and algorithm design. The conference featured two distinguished invited talks: Professor Christina Boura (Université Paris Cité, France) delivered a keynote address entitled “Cryptanalysis of Neural Networks,” and Professor Bart Mennink (Maastricht University, Netherlands) presented “Evolution of Permutation-Based Modes and Their Security.” Both talks were received with great enthusiasm and generated lively scholarly discussion.

Conference venue and Q&A for paper presentations at FSE 2026.

The technical programme comprised 19 sessions covering a broad range of topics, including hash function cryptanalysis, block cipher analysis, cryptographic algorithm design for privacy-preserving computation, neural network security analysis, high-performance cryptographic algorithm design, provable security, and quantum cryptanalysis. A total of 51 papers were presented across these sessions.

Keynote session at FSE 2026.

FSE 2026 received 196 paper submissions from around the world. Following a rigorous double-blind peer-review process, 55 papers were accepted, corresponding to an acceptance rate of approximately 28%. The conference attracted 168 registered participants from academia and industry across the globe.

Among the distinguished attendees were four IACR Fellows. Three were newly elected to this honour: Professor Huaxiong Wang (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), Professor Gregor Leander (Ruhr University Bochum, Germany), and Professor Henri Gilbert (Université Paris-Saclay, France). Also present was Professor Anne Canteaut (INRIA, France), who was inducted as an IACR Fellow in 2024. Their collective presence further underscored the conference’s standing as a premier international venue for symmetric cryptography research.

ASK 2026 was held from 19 to 21 March 2026 at NTU Singapore. The Asian Workshop on Symmetric Key Cryptography (ASK) is a dedicated annual forum for advancing symmetric-key cryptography research across Asia since 2011, which is co-founded by Professor Jian Guo. ASK offers an international platform for researchers to exchange ideas, present frontier results, and forge new collaborations. ASK 2026 was co-organized by Professor Zhenzhen Bao (Tsinghua University, China) and Dr. Eik List (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) and drew a record 120 registered attendees.  

Workshop venue and break at ASK 2026.

Grand picture at ASK 2026.

SoSC 2026 was held from 16 to 18 March 2026 at NTU Singapore, in cooperation with IACR. Covering a broad spectrum of the field, the school was organized by Dr. Christof Beierle, Professor Gregor Leander, and Dr. Shahram Rasoolzadeh (Ruhr University Bochum, Germany), together with Dr. Shichang Wang (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore). The programme featured three internationally renowned researchers, each dedicating a full day to their area of specialisation. The school attracted 70 students and postdoctoral researchers from around the world.

Group picture at SoSC 2026.

The successful organization of FSE 2026 reflects NTU Singapore’s commitment to fostering international excellence in cybersecurity and cryptography research. The conference served as a world-class platform for researchers to exchange ideas, present breakthrough findings, and forge lasting collaborations — contributing to the ongoing advancement of symmetric cryptography and consolidating NTU’s prominent standing in the global cryptographic research community.

About FSE

Fast Software Encryption (FSE) is the annual academic conference dedicated to symmetric cryptography, organised under the auspices of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR). The conference covers all aspects of symmetric cryptographic primitives and their cryptanalysis, including block ciphers, stream ciphers, hash functions, message authentication codes, and modes of operation.

About NTU Singapore

A research-intensive public university, NTU Singapore has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Business, Computing and Data Science, Engineering, Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and its Interdisciplinary Graduate School. NTU is also home to world-class autonomous institutes — the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering — and various leading research centres.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Dr. Shichang Wang  |  School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, NTU Singapore
Email: [email protected]