For the fifth time, the European Competence Center for IT Security (eurobits e.V.) has honored an outstanding thesis in the field of IT security and information security with the eurobits Excellence Award. The 21-year-old Benedict Schlüter convinced with his bachelor thesis on the topic "Security Analysis of eBPF", which he wrote at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Jury head and deputy chairman of eurobits e.V., Ralf Benzmüller, justified the award with the high practical relevance of the research results for the detection of complicated security gaps.
Security and protection for operating systems
eBPF (extended Berkeley Packet Filter) is a modern technology in the field of operating system engineering. "eBPF is to the operating system world what JavaScript was for the Internet at that time," describes Benedict. Application developers can draw on eBPF to inspect Linux operating systems and make changes to them. In the thesis Benedict shows that until now, unprivileged users, i.e., no system administrators, have been able to smuggle malicious code. The result: serious security gaps that allow unintentional access to sensitive data.
Digital competition
Four students from the field of IT security qualified for the final. The finalists presented the results of their theses to the expert jury, composed of renowned scientists and eurobits members, in a web conference. In addition to HGI speaker Prof. Tim Güneysu, Ralf Benzmüller, Alpha Barry, Biljana Cubaleska, Dr. Heiko Koepke and Prof. Jan Pelzl decided on the award. "I am always surprised how broad the spectrum of submissions is for the eurobits Excellence Award - that doesn't make it easy for" said Ralf Benzmüller. In addition to scientific excellence, a high degree of practical significance was critical for the judgment.
The award comes with prize money of 1000 euros. In addition, Benedict received an invitation to the subsequent eurobits Security Summit and the opportunity to present his thesis to a high-ranking audience of experts from all over Europe.
About eurobits e.V.
Since 1999, eurobits e. V. has successfully established an umbrella brand under which leading research institutes, committed companies and young growth companies have united. Currently, eurobits has more than 30 well-known members who deal with the topic of cyber security. This makes eurobits the competent contact for inquiries on all current IT security topics. eurobits also actively promotes young scientists. The eurobits Excellence Award, which has been presented annually since 2017, is given for outstanding bachelor's or master's theses on the topic of IT security. Applications for the eurobits Excellence Award 2022 can already be submitted now.
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