Send email Copy Email Address

2021-12-03
Annabelle Theobald

Strong presentations at Franco-German cybersecurity workshop

IT security researchers from both countries shared their research and presented the results of their collaboration on Tuesday.

The cross-border cooperation between the Loria in Nancy and the CISPA in Saarbrücken is proving remarkably fruitful. Numerous researchers from both institutions took part in the latest meeting of the renowned research institutions. "During this CISPA-LORIA workshop we were lucky to have a variety of very nice talk on various topics concerning Cybersecurity. Furthermore, our speakers tailored their talks to a varied audience which made them especially enjoyable even to non-specialists", summarized Prof. Dr. Antoine Joux (CISPA). Prof. Dr. Marine Minier (Loria) agrees: "Even though we couldn't meet in person, the morning presentations were very diverse and exceedingly informative, especially on the topics of fuzzing and multi-party computing."

On Tuesday, November 30, the research staff of both institutions came together, to exchange their research results, online due to Corona. The event was hosted by Antoine Joux and Marine Minier, who after introductory remarks gave the virtual stage to the researchers.

Dr. Najwa Aaraj, Chief Researcher at the Cryptography Research Centre of the Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi, opened the day with a talk on post-quantum secure cryptography. Among other things, she spoke about the practical challenges of using systems designed to be secure against quantum attacks. In addition, the researcher shed light on the role machine learning could play in developing new cybersecurity solutions.

Following this, lead researcher Professor Dr. Andreas Zeller of CISPA presented a new method for automated security testing of cryptographic systems.

In the third talk of the day, CNRS researchers Dr. Virginie Lallemand and Dr. Benoît Cogliati, research group leader at CISPA, presented an improved algorithm for full disk encryption. Its goal is to prevent the theft or disclosure of data, for example from stolen devices.

To conclude the lecture series, Dr. Julian Loss, tenure-track faculty at CISPA, presented a new class of protocols for distributed computing that meet practically motivated optimal security bounds under various network conditions.

"In the afternoon, we exchanged ideas on how to strengthen our collaboration, and this generated - even via virtual discussion - very promising ideas," says Marine Minier. More workshops are already planned for 2022. "We hope to meet again in March and in June, although we also hope it can be held as a face-to-face event at least in June." Antoine Joux adds, "The future will all be about strengthening the collaboration toward more common research and partnership in various projects. As a symbol of the collaboration, a logo is being prepared and the first proposals for it were presented during the meeting."


About the Franco-German Center for Cybersecurity

The center is an association of the largest and most renowned cybersecurity research centers in Europe. The CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security and the INRIA/Loria in Nancy have been pursuing joint paths in cybersecurity research since 2020 and are dedicated to strengthening transfer and innovation activities between France and Germany. Leaders on the German side are Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Michael Backes and Prof. Dr. Antoine Joux and on the French side Prof. Dr. Jean-Yves Marion and Prof. Dr. Marine Minier.

 

translated by Oliver Schedler