Over the past decades, the field of provable security for symmetric cryptographic primitives has evolved significantly. Since the seminal works of Goldreich-Goldwasser-Micali, Luby-Rackoff, and Bellare-Rogaway, we have made tremendous progress on multiple fronts: new primitives and security notions capturing the evolving landscape of real-world protocols, sophisticated proof techniques, and tighter security bounds.

Through the GAPS workshop, we aim to bring together leading experts and early-career researchers to reflect on these developments, revisit long-standing open questions, and identify new avenues for future research. This year's event marks a legacy spanning three decades of Practice-Oriented Provable Security, which has been fundamental in bridging the gap between theoretical cryptography and real-world deployment.

The workshop will follow a Dagstuhl- and ASK-style format, with invited talks in the morning sessions, and group discussions in the afternoon sessions focusing on the following high-level topics:

1. Fine-tuning security bounds by bridging the gap between proofs and attacks.
2. Exploring general proof techniques and foundational issues.
3. Formulating new notions to capture novel threats to real-world applications of symmetric cryptography.
4. Security against (post-)quantum adversaries.
5. SK cryptography under new proof-driven security notions specific to ZKP, MPC, Tor, PQ settings.
6. Provably secure and efficient modes for Arithmetization-Oriented applications.
7. Security in the presence of leakage and fault.
8. Automated tools for security proof verification.

The GAPS 2026 workshop will be held at TU Wien, in Vienna, Austria.

The invited talks and discussions will be held at the Campus Favoritenstraße of TU Wien Informatics.

The workshop organizers can be contacted by email at gapsworkshop@gmail.com.