Ruhr-Uni-Bochum
Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries

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Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries

CASA in a nutshell

Welcome to CASA – your home for cutting-edge IT security research in Germany and beyond. Innovative and Holistic: We aim to develop strong countermeasures against powerful cyber attackers.

Steffen Becker and Endres Puschner

Detecting Manipulations in Microchips

Attackers have the ability not only to manipulate software, but also to tamper with the hardware. A team from Bochum is devising methods to detect…
Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries

Research

CASA’s holistic approach is internationally unique and holds the potential for groundbreaking results. The cluster will serve as a blueprint for security research, combining top-level science, interdisciplinarity and practice.

Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries

Team

Our outstanding PI team covers the full range needed for tackling the challenging research problems in modern cyber security.

Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries

Research Hub A:
Future Cryptography

Our goal is to develop cryptographic solutions against large-scale adversaries.

Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries

Research Hub B:
Embedded Security

We will investigate the interaction of security systems with their physical environment.

Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries

Research Hub C:
Secure Systems

We will build secure systems, design mitigation chains and utilize machine learning techniques to detect unknown attacks.

Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries

Research Hub D:
Usability

We will focus on end-user behavior and the systems engineering process to integrate human behavior and technical security research.

"CASA - Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries"

"CASA - Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries" pursues the goal of enabling sustainable security against large-scale adversaries, in particular nation-state attackers.

The research is characterized by a strongly interdisciplinary approach which, in addition to technical questions, also investigates the interaction of human behavior and IT security.

The scientific core of CASA is formed by four Research Hubs. The Future Cryptography Hub investigates crucial foundational problems and the Embedded Security Hub addresses platform security challenges in the context of powerful attackers. The Secure Systems Hub will provide solutions for building complex systems in a secure fashion. Finally, the research in the Usability Hub will address the challenge of making the research in the three technical hubs usable for humans.

The Transfer Lab will investigate the integration of the security solutions from the Research Hubs into real-world applications in a truly meaningful manner.

CASA Highlights

First planning meeting with RUB 

Draft proposal for "CASA" submitted

Full proposal CASA is submitted 

Start of the Cluster of Excellence

Start of 6 CASA Fundamental Research Projects 

Grand opening of the Cluster of Excellence 

First place in CSAW competition for Jörg Schwenk

Intel's "Outstanding Researcher Award" for Thorsten Holz

Numerous CASA members in the final of the NIST standardization process for post-quantum cryptography

First Mid-Term Reviews of CASA Research Projects

CASA Online-Retreat for PhDs and Postdocs

CASA Early Career Researchers at Full Strength: Target of 40 Phds and Postdocs Reached

Amir Moradi set a record in the history of the CHES conference - co-authoring of 10 accepted papers

The Art-Science residency RE:SEARCHING IT-SECURITY begins

Minister of Culture and Science Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen visits HGI and CASA as part of her research trip "#Möglichmacher"

Prof. Eike Kiltz receives ERC Advanced Grant
Prof. Thorsten Holz and Prof. Konrad Rieck receive ERC Consolidator Grants
ERC Starting Grant for Prof. Michael Walter
Closing Event of the Art-Science Residency "RE:SEARCHING IT SECURITY"

CASA researchers win global NIST standardization process on post-quantum cryptography

Lucas David receives ERC Starting Grant

CASA Retreat 2022

Publication of the first CASA comic book about the research of Research Hub C

Publication of our CASA comic book about the research of Research Hub A

Early 2016
2016
July 2016
April 2017
September 2017
February 2018
September 2018
January 2019
January 2019
March 2019
March 2019
End of March 2019
September 2019
November 2019
October 2019
January 2020
May 2020
July 2020
August 2020
October 2020
November 2020
March 2021
June 2021
August 2021
September 2021
October 2021
November 2021
January 2022
March 2022
April 2022
June 2022
July 2022
August 2022
September 2022
November 2022
January 2023

First idea for an EXC application by the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security

DFG publishes call for proposals for Clusters of Excellence within the Excellence Strategy

CASA is invited to submit full proposal 

Funding decision: CASA becomes Cluster of Excellence

CASA Initial Research Projects begin

CASA consortium agreement adopted

Best Paper Award for Amir Moradi at CHES for "Glitch-Resistant Masking Revisited"

First 3-day CASA Retreat

Start of the regularly held CASA Distinguished Lectures

First Strategy Meeting With the CASA Advisory Board

Admission of Angela Sasse to the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts

Organization of the first international "Women in Security and Cryptography" Workshop

CASA Retreat 2021

The paper "Faster Addition and Doubling on Elliptic Curves" by the CASA PIs Daniel J. Bernstein and Tanja Lange is awarded the IACR Test-of-Time Award 2022

CASA Summer School on Blockchain Security

Amir Moradi contributed 8 papers to CHES.

Distinguished Paper Awards for Konrad Rieck and Thorsten Holz (USENIX) and Alena Naiakshina (SOUPS).

Team around CASA PI Amir Moradi wins 1st place of the 9th German IT Security Award