Athene (research center)

ATHENE, formerly Center for Research in Security and Privacy (CRISP), is the national research center for IT security and privacy in Germany and the largest research center for IT security in Europe.[1][2] The research center is located in Darmstadt and deals with key issues of IT security in the digitization of government, business and society.

ATHENE
Established2015
Field of research
IT security, cryptography
DirectorsMichael Waidner
StaffOver 500
AddressRheinstraße 75, 64295 Darmstadt, Germany
LocationDarmstadt, Hesse, Germany
Websitewww.athene-center.de

ATHENE established a new research area in IT security research, the IT security of large systems, which is the focus of its research. Up to now, isolated aspects such as individual protocols or encryption methods have mostly been investigated. Research into the IT security of large systems should lead to a measurable increase in IT security. The research spectrum ranges from basic research to application.[3]

Director of ATHENE is Michael Waidner.[4]

Organisation

ATHENE is an institution of the Fraunhofer Society and an alliance of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (Fraunhofer SIT), the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research (Fraunhofer IGD), the Technische Universität Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt) and the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (h_da). All institutions are based in Darmstadt.

ATHENE is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts (HMWK).[1][5][6]

Research themes

The following research themes have emerged under the main topic IT security of large systems. The institute conducts research on analysis techniques for large software systems and the design of mechanisms for securing sensitive data. The idea behind the latter is privacy by design. In addition, the institute conducts research on fundamental engineering issues of securing critical infrastructures and develops analysis techniques for increasing the security of mobile platforms and methods for measuring IT security and data protection.[7]

History

ATHENEs history dates back to 1961, when the German Data Center (German: Deutsches Rechenzentrum (DRZ)) was founded in Darmstadt. At that time, the German Data Center was equipped with one of the most powerful mainframe computers in Germany and thus became the first mainframe computer center in Germany that could be used for research purposes by universities and scientific institutions.[8] After the Arpanet succeeded in connecting computers with each other, communication between the machines became the focus of research at the DRZ. The DRZ had merged in 1973 with other research institutions in this field to form the Society for Mathematics and Data Processing (German: Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD)). As a result, resources were pooled and working groups networked and the society established the Institute for Remote Data Processing, which was renamed the Institute for Telecooperation Technology in 1992. Under the leadership of Heinz Thielmann, the institute became more and more involved with IT security issues and with the rise of the Internet, IT security became increasingly important, so that in 1998 it was renamed the Institute for Secure Telecooperation. In 2001, GMD merged with the Fraunhofer Society into the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (Fraunhofer SIT).[9]

In 1975, José Luis Encarnação established the Interactive Graphics Systems (GRIS) research group within the Institute for Information Management and Interactive Systems of the Department of Computer Science of the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt (TH Darmstadt), now called Technische Universität Darmstadt. GRIS later collaborated with the Center for Computer Graphics in 1984. A working group, which emerged from this collaboration, was taken up by the Fraunhofer Society and in 1987 the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research (Fraunhofer IGD) was established.[10] Founding Director of the Fraunhofer IGD was José Luis Encarnação.[11]

In 1996, Johannes Buchmann was appointed Professor of Theoretical Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science of TH Darmstadt. His appointment is regarded as the birth of IT security at TH Darmstadt. In 2001, Claudia Eckert, who also headed Fraunhofer SIT from 2001 to 2011, was appointed Professor of Information Security at TU Darmstadt.

In 1999, Darmstadt’s universities and research institutions founded the Competence Center for Applied Security (CAST), the largest network for cyber security in German-speaking countries.[12]

In 2002, the Darmstadt Center for IT-Security (German: Darmstädter Zentrum für IT-Sicherheit (DZI)) was founded, which in 2008 became the Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED). Founding Director of CASED was Buchmann. In 2010, Michael Waidner became Director of Fraunhofer SIT. In response to Buchmann and Waidners efforts, the European Center for Security and Privacy by Design (EC SPRIDE) was founded in 2011. CASED and EC SPRIDE were part of LOEWE, the research excellence programm of the state Hesse.[13][14][15] Buchmann and Waidner developed the centers into the largest research institutions for IT security in Europe. In 2015, CASED and EC SPRIDE merged into Center for Research in Security and Privacy (CRISP).

In 2012, Intel founded the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Secure Computing at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. It was the first Intel collaborative research center for IT security outside of the United States.[16] In 2014, the German Research Foundation (DFG) also established the Collaborative Research Centre Cryptography–Based Security Solutions (CROSSING), which deals with cryptography-based security solutions.[17] In 2016, the Federal Ministry of Finance decided to make the region around Darmstadt the pre-eminent hub for the digital transformation of the economy. The Federal Ministry of Finance set up the "Digital Hub Cybersecurity" and "Digital Hub FinTech" centres in the region to help start-ups in Germany commercialise, scale and internationalise their solutions and companies.[18]

Researchers at ATHENE played a major role in establishing the field of post quantum cryptography internationally. In 2018, the stateful hash-based signature scheme XMSS developed by a team of researchers under the direction of Buchmann became the first international standard for post-quantum signature schemes. XMSS is the first future-proof secure and practical signature scheme with minimal security requirements. The work began in 2003.[19][20][21][22] Since 1 January 2019, CRISP has been the national research centre for IT security in Germany. CRISP was later renamed ATHENE.[23]

gollark: And ARM servers are actually serious and workable now (Altera Ampere).
gollark: Lightmatter has optical matrix-vector multiplier things and apparently superconductor-based logic gates could be very fast.
gollark: You can do fun stuff with light and superconductors, apparently, maybe those will go somewhere.
gollark: And quantum computing is NOT a general solution to things or very practical in consumer devices right now.
gollark: Density improvements continue, if more slowly.

References
  1. "Nationales Forschungszentrum für angewandte Cybersicherheit CRISP besucht | Informationsportal Hessen". www.hessen.de. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  2. BMBF-Internetredaktion. "Größtes europäisches Forschungszentrum für IT-Sicherheit gegründet - BMBF". Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung - BMBF (in German). Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  3. "Flagship Project". CRISP. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  4. "Committees". CRISP. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  5. Cybersecurity, Profile Area. "CRISP - Center for Research in Security and Privacy". Profile Area Cybersecurity – Technische Universität Darmstadt. Archived from the original on 2019-06-21. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  6. "Profile". CRISP. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  7. "Forschungsgebiete". CRISP (in German). Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  8. "Fraunhofer-Institut für Sichere Informationstechnologie (SIT)". www.darmstadt-stadtlexikon.de. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  9. "Institutsgeschichte". Fraunhofer SIT (in German). Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  10. "Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung (IGD)". www.darmstadt-stadtlexikon.de. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  11. "Ahoi Bodo – Abschied nach 26 Jahren | Fraunhofer IGD". www.igd.fraunhofer.de. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  12. "Mitglied". www.teletrust.de. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  13. "Über ProLoewe / ProLoewe". proloewe.de. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  14. Würth, Paulina. "Schutz aus Darmstadt: Forschungszentrum für angewandte Cybersicherheit". www.elektroniknet.de (in German). Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  15. Komplexitätstheorie, Kryptographie und. "EC SPRIDE (BMBF)". Kryptographie und Komplexitätstheorie – Technische Universität Darmstadt. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  16. "Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Secure Computing: Institute". www.icri-sc.org. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  17. "DFG - SFB 1119: CROSSING - Kryptographiebasierte Sicherheitslösungen als Grundlage für Vertrauen in heutigen und zukünftigen IT-Systemen". www.dfg.de (in German). Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  18. "Frankfurt Darmstadt | de:hub digital ecosystems". www.de-hub.de (in German). Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  19. "Security: Erster Standard für Post-Quantum-Signaturen". www.industry-of-things.de (in German). Retrieved 2019-10-11.
  20. online, heise. "Digitale Signaturen: Erster Standard für Post-Quantum-Signaturen". Security (in German). Retrieved 2019-10-11.
  21. "TU Darmstadt: Ein Rezept gegen die Macht der Quantencomputer". idw-online.de. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  22. Buchmann J., Dahmen E., Hülsing A. (2011) XMSS - A Practical Forward Secure Signature Scheme Based on Minimal Security Assumptions. In: Yang BY. (eds) Post-Quantum Cryptography. PQCrypto 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7071. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
  23. Zeitung, Süddeutsche. "Cybersicherheitszentrum wird Nationales Forschungszentrum". Süddeutsche.de (in German). Retrieved 2019-10-30.
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