-HGI News- Christmas Greetings and a Review of the Year

Fri Dec 23 09:48:06 CET 2022

Bochum, December 23, 2022

Christmas Greetings and a Review of the Year

At the end of a successful year, we're heading off for the Christmas break.

The Christmas season starts soon. The HGI and CASA Head Office Team wishes a
Merry Christmas to you and your family. May your life be filled with warmth
and good cheer this holiday season and throughout the New Year. 

Political and social events turned 2022 into a special year in many ways.
When it comes to cybersecurity research, we at HGI and CASA can also look
back on several eventful months. Read our review of the year here:

NIST Competition, ERC Grants and other Awards

It was probably one of the greatest successes in the history of IT Security
research in Bochum that we celebrated in July when
<https://hgi.rub.de/en/news/newsarchiv/hgi/future-proof-data-encryption> the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced the winners
of the "Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization" competition: HGI/CASA
scientists Eike Kiltz, Peter Schwabe, Tanja Lange, and Dan Bernstein were
involved in three of the four final algorithms.

News from the European Research Council provided more reasons to celebrate.
In April,
<https://hgi.rub.de/en/news/newsarchiv/hgi/erc-advanced-grant-for-prof-dr-ei
ke-kiltz> Eike Kiltz received an ERC Advanced Grant endowed with 2.5 million
euros for five years.
<https://casa.rub.de/en/news/casa/prof-konrad-rieck-receives-erc-consolidato
r-grant> Konrad Rieck (TU Braunschweig/CASA PI) and
<https://casa.rub.de/en/news/casa/erc-consolidator-grant-for-prof-thorsten-h
olz> Thorsten Holz received a Consolidator Grant,
<https://hgi.rub.de/en/news/newsarchiv/hgi/great-success-lucas-davi-receives
-erc-starting-grant> Lucas Davi (Uni Duisburg-Essen/CASA PI) and
<https://hgi.rub.de/en/news/newsarchiv/hgi/surprising-symmetries-for-theoret
ical-computer-science> Michael Walter were awarded an ERC Starting Grant.

Speaking of winners: this year's German IT Security Award was held at the
Ruhr-Universität in November. The
<https://hgi.rub.de/en/news/newsarchiv/hgi/hgi-team-wins-1st-place-in-the-9t
h-german-it-security-award> first prize went to HGI scientists David
Knichel, Amir Moradi, Nicolai Müller, and Pascal Sasdrich for their project
"Simply secure: A toolbox for automated creation of protected hardware".
They won 100,000 euros in prize money.

Numerous papers from our research team also received awards: Konrad Rieck,
Erwin Quiring and Alexander Warnecke (Et al.) received a Distinguished Paper
Award for the paper
<https://www.usenix.org/system/files/sec22summer_arp.pdf> "Dos and Don'ts of
Machine Learning in Computer Security" at the "Usenix Security Symposium".
At the same conference, Tobias Scharnowski, Nils Bars, Moritz Schloegel,
Thorsten Holz, and Ali Abbasi (Et al.) won a Distinguished Artifact Award
for their paper
<https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity22/presentation/scharnowski
> "Fuzzware: Using Precise MMIO Modeling for Effective Firmware Fuzzing".
Alena Naiakshina was awarded a Distinguished Paper Award at the "SOUPS -
Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security" for the paper
<https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2022/presentation/geierhaas> "Let's
Hash: Helping Developers with Password Security". The paper
<https://eprint.iacr.org/2007/286.pdf> "Faster Addition and Doubling on
Elliptic Curves" by Daniel J. Bernstein and Tanja Lange got the IACR
Test-of-Time Award.

New Research Projects and Colleagues

A new research project launched in 2022 is
<https://hgi.rub.de/en/news/newsarchiv/hgi/getting-it-security-out-of-the-ne
rdy-corner> "Digital Fitness for Citizens - Realistic Risk Perception, Safe
Routines," or DigiFit for short, coordinated by Angela Sasse. The project is
funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for three
years with around 2 million euros.

Great news reached Postdoc Pascal Sasdrich right before Christmas: The
German Research Foundation funds him for an Emmy Noether group, which will
start next year.

The cybersecurity research team in Bochum is constantly growing. In 2022 we
welcomed some new colleagues.
<https://hgi.rub.de/en/news/newsarchiv/hgi/michael-walter-joins-as-professor
-of-quantum-information> Michael Walter holds now the professorship for
Quantum Information,
<https://hgi.rub.de/en/news/newsarchiv/hgi/amir-moradi-protects-data-in-digi
tized-everyday-objects> Amir Moradi came back from Cologne to Bochum as a
professor for Implementation Security. By December, Karola Marky joined us
as a professor for "Digital Sovereignty". The news that Thorsten Holz joins
the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security as tenured faculty is a
great pity, but we look forward to the future collegial collaboration.

Events and Outreach

After the long Corona break, we especially enjoyed the events this year that
could take place face-to-face again. A detailed report on the
<https://casa.rub.de/en/news/casa/blockchain-in-the-sun-casa-summer-school-2
022> CASA Summer School on Blockchain Security and the
<https://casa.rub.de/en/news/casa/casa-retreat-2022> CASA Retreat in
Königswinter can be found on our  <https://casa.rub.de/en/news> news pages.

Some of our  <https://casa.rub.de/en/news/distinguished-lectures> CASA
Distinguished Lectures also took place on-site at Ruhr-Universität again.
The lectures of the high-ranking speakers can all be watched on our
<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhZnvwRvkztcAkuCDlmj35F2pV7oa96jl>
Youtube channel.

A special evening was the closing event of the
<https://casa.rub.de/en/outreach/art-science-residency> artist residency of
the media artist Marco Barotti, who presented his concept APES. His sound
sculptures made of recycled Wi-Fi sector antennas were created in
collaboration with our researchers in 2022. Many have also a lot of positive
memories when it comes to the
<https://hgi.rub.de/en/news/newsarchiv/hgi/the-moeglichmacher-research-trip-
makes-a-stop-in-bochum> visit of the Minister of Culture and Science, Isabel
Pfeiffer-Poensgen, as part of her research trip "#Möglichmacher".

The first  <https://casa.rub.de/en/outreach/science-comics> CASA comic
entitled "What's the Fuzz About Hub C and the Missing Carrots?" also offers
another, artistic approach to learning more about the science at CASA. Those
who prefer to listen rather than read may have enjoyed Cube 5’s podcast
series,  <https://nachgehacktpodcast.podigee.io/> "Nachgehackt - the Podcast
on IT Security."

Last but not least, at the end of the year, we’re happily looking back on
our series
<https://casa.rub.de/en/equal-opportunities/women-in-it-security> "Women in
IT Security", in which we presented fantastic female scientists from our
institute month by month.

Preview for the Coming Year

With all these memorable moments in mind, we’re now leaving our office for a
winter break until 09.01.2023.

New, joyful events will be coming up in 2023. On this occasion, we can
already announce a few dates. On February 10,
<https://sechuman.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/newsarchiv/sechuman/sechuman-annual-sym
posium-2023>  SecHuman invites you to the Annual Symposium. A farewell party
for Thorsten Holz is dated for March 9. On April 20, we will host the
opening of the  <https://casa.rub.de/en/outreach/art-installation-dis/play>
IT art project "DIS/PLAY" by artist Ralf Baecker. The HGI will celebrate its
20th birthday on May 10, for which we will invite shortly. 

Further dates will be announced in January.

Kind regards

Christina Scholten

RUHR-UNIVERSITÄT BOCHUM

Horst Görtz Institut for IT Security/ Cluster of Excellence CASA 

Marketing and Public Relations

MC EG 78, Postfach MC 3

Universitätsstr. 150

44780 Bochum, Germany

Tel: +49-(0)234-32-29274

E-Mail:  <mailto:christina.scholten at rub.de> christina.scholten at rub.de

 <http://www.hgi.rub.de/> www.hgi.rub.de 

 <http://www.casa.rub.de/> www.casa.rub.de

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