At the beginning of June, Professor Christof Paar, chair holder and expert for Embedded Security at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), was an invited guest at the Harvard Kennedy School, an interdisciplinary graduate school for political sciences at Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts, USA). Harvard University is regarded as one of the world's most renowned elite universities.
Hardware Trojans in focus
As part of the Harvard Kennedy School's International Security Program, Paar gave a lecture entitled "Cyber and Hardware Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries. In terms of content, Hardware Trojans in the context of powerful attackers were the focus of the lecture, which was listened to by around 50 interested participants. In contrast to the usual guest lectures by Paar, the political side of IT security was particularly taken into account.
Cluster of Excellence CASA
The title of the lecture is also well known in this country as it refers to the Cluster of Excellence "CASA - Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries" at the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security (HGI) of the RUB. The interdisciplinary project aims to develop countermeasures against strong, large-scale attackers, for example by governmental or semi-governmental organizations. CASA is being funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for an initial period of seven years with around 30 million euros.
Awareness of political implications sharpened
"The visit to Harvard Kennedy School was very enriching and has sharpened my focus on the political implications of the CASA Cluster of Excellence. And it was simply a great, special atmosphere on site," Paar sums up.
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The lecture "Cyber and Hardware Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries" by Professor Christof Paar is available for download here.
Further information, lectures and publications can be found on the website of the Chair of Embedded Security.
General note: In case of using gender-assigning attributes we include all those who consider themselves in this gender regardless of their own biological sex.