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

Copyright: fotolia/stock.adobe.com: monsitj

About CASA

The digital world has increasingly become a big part of our daily lives. Whether it's healthcare data, corporate disclosures, or state secrets: All this critical information is digitized today and has become accessible worldwide. Within the Cluster of Excellence CASA - Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, we are pursuing the goal of making the digital world a safer place.

Our adversaries are powerful: The largest cyberattacks of our time often have well-organized, vast networks of cybercriminals or attackers with nation-state interests behind them. They have enormous financial resources and the technical expertise to cause long-term damage. Against these large-scale adversaries, today's security solutions are inadequate.

This is why CASA brings together top-class scientists from various IT security disciplines to research sustainable countermeasures to create a more secure future for our digitized world.

The strength of CASA lies in its unique holistic and interdisciplinary approach, which provides the basis for excellent research. That approach has enabled us to prevail over all our competitors and win a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the CASA Cluster of Excellence, which provides funding of 30 million euros over seven years.

 

Welcome to CASA - home of excellent IT security research

 

Gruppenfoto Retreat 2023

Copyright: CASA, Fabian Riediger

CASA Structures

To advance cyber security in ways that will have a transformational impact on the scientific community and practice, CASA will take a holistic and comprehensive approach that is based on a unique and innovative combination of features. The CASA Team as well as the excellent academic and corporate network form the basis that ensures the achievement of our ambitious objectives.

Outstanding Team of PIs: The CASA PIs have been carefully selected to form an internationally highly competitive team that possesses the required diversity of expertise. It is the only group with three ERC grantees in cyber security and it also includes the founder of the field of usable security.

Corporate Network: The HGI has a highly successful history of transferring research results into Industry. Thus, CASA can make use of a vast pool of national and international R&D partners, including IBM Research, Intel, Philips Research and SAP Research. The HGI has spun off 16 security start-ups, the highest number in Germany, and their quality has been evidenced by takeovers through e.g. Bosch, Google and Rohde & Schwarz.

Regional and International Academic Network: CASA is hosted by the Horst Görtz Institute for IT-Security, the pioneering research center in Germany. CASA can furthermore rely on strong collaborations with the new Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy. The local Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) as well as the vast international academic network of CASA PIs further enrich the outstanding conditions for research activities within CASA.

Lean and Professional Management: Transparent decision-making processes and efficient management of CASA activities form another cornerstone for CASA’s success.