ESORICS, the European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, is the leading research-oriented conference on the theory and practice of computer security in Europe. It takes place every two years, at various locations throughout Europe, and is coordinated by an independent Steering Committee. ESORICS 2002 was jointly organized by the Swiss Federal Institute of Te- nology (ETH) and the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, and took place in Zurich, Switzerland, October 14-16, 2002. The program committee received 83 submissions, originating from 22 co- tries. For fans of statistics: 55 submissions came from countries in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa, 16 came from Asia, and 12from North America. The leading countries were USA (11 submissions), Germany (9), France (7), Italy (7), Japan (6), and UK (6). Each submission was reviewed by at least three p- gram committee members or other experts. Each submission coauthored by a program committee member received two additional reviews. The program c- mittee chair and cochair were not allowed to submit papers. The?nal selection of papers was made at a program committee meeting and resulted in 16 accepted papers. In comparison, ESORICS 2000 received 75 submissions and accepted 19 of them. The program re?ects the full range of security research: we accepted papers on access control, authentication, cryptography, database security, formal methods, intrusion detection, mobile code security, privacy, secure hardware, and secure protocols. We gratefully acknowledge all authors who submitted papers for their e?orts in maintaining the standards of this conference.