Melanie Volkamer and Peter Mayer are supporting the program committee of the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2026) this year. As of January 2026, SOUPS has improved its ranking and is now rated as "A" conference. SOUPS will take place from August 23 to 26, 2026 in Hannover, Germany. Papers must be registered for submission by February 12, submission is open until February 19.

The paper "From Matrix to Metrics: Introducing and Applying a Configuration Matrix to Evaluate DMARC Policies" by Tobias Länge, Fabian Ballreich, Anne Hennig, Peter Mayer, and Melanie Volkamer was accepted for presentation at the Workshop Measurements, Attacks, and Defenses for the Web (MADWeb) 2026. In the paper, an utility-oriented configuration matrix was developed that focuses on the anti-spoofing effectiveness of different DMARC configurations and provides clear recommendations for selecting the appropriate configuration. An analyses of the data from the Tranco Top-100k domains reveals over a period of eight month showed that domains move towards configurations that are more effective against email spoofing, however, still exhibiting a lack of knowledge with respect to different policy settings. MadWeb 2026 will take place as co-located event with NDSS on February 27, 2026 in San Diego, USA.

Four SECUSO papers have been selected for presentation at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing System (CHI 2026). CHI is the most important international conference in the field of human-computer interaction and a publication at CHI is a special highlight for the researchers. CHI 2026 will take place April 13 to 17 in Barcelona, Spain. 

The paper "`I found the text to be encouraging´ - Evaluating Different Password Strength Calculator Designs" by Rozalina Doneva, Anne Hennig, and Peter Mayer was accepted for presentation at the Symposium on Usable Security and Privacy (USEC) 2026. In the paper, six interactive password strength calculator designs were evaluated with respect to usability, emotional affect, password strength, and password length. The results showed that fear-appeal nudges yield results of similar strength to positive-feedback nudges. Still, positive feedback nudges resulted in slightly longer passwords, breaking with the paradigm that only fear appeals effectively support the creation of secure passwords. With respect to usability, designs with additional information and guidance performed significantly better than those without. USEC 2026 will take place as co-located event with NDSS on February 27, 2026 in San Diego, USA.