Kickoff of the “Secure Critical Infrastructure” Lecture Series in the 2026/2027 Winter Term
The 13th lecture series in the “Secure Critical Infrastructure” programme is taking place this winter semester. To kick things off, Prof. Dr. Dr. Christian Reuter, a researcher at ATHENE, will introduce the lecture series and the topic of securing critical infrastructure on October 14.
The series will address various critical infrastructures and their security challenges. Speakers from research institutions, companies, government agencies and critical infrastructure operators have been invited to give specialised presentations on specific aspects of the topic. The 'Secure Critical Infrastructures' lecture series is organised by ATHENE researchers Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Hollick, Prof. Dr. Dr. Christian Reuter and Prof. Dr. Jens Ivo Engels.
New ATHENE project: Greater security for embedded systems in practice and research
Since the start of the year, ATHENE has been running a new research project entitled ‘Advanced Reverse Engineering Techniques for Embedded and Wireless Systems’ – ARTEWS for short. Until the end of 2029, ATHENE researchers will be working to make the security of embedded systems systematically verifiable – and will be developing complementary tools for this purpose, which will be integrated into a practical toolbox by the end of the project. The target audience comprises small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as academic research groups. The toolbox is designed to help them carry out security analyses in a structured and independent manner.
read moreATHENE researchers have uncovered serious security vulnerabilities in children's smartwatches.
Smartwatches enable children to make calls and send text messages to their parents. Parents can also use the device to track their child's location. Designed for children aged 4–10, these smartwatches serve as an introduction to smartphones. ATHENE researchers from the Secure Mobile Networks (SEEMOO) department at TU Darmstadt, headed by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Hollick, have examined a children's smartwatch and found that even basic IT security mechanisms were not observed. Doctoral student Nils Rollshausen explains the details of the analysis in an interview.
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UNIDIR report on submarine cables is published: Co-Authored by ATHENE researcher
Subsea fiber-optic cables form the backbone of global digital infrastructure, carrying over 99% of intercontinental data traffic, yet despite their critical importance, they have received limited attention in national and international policy frameworks. A new report by the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) addresses this gap through a detailed analysis of various approaches to designating and protecting undersea cables as critical infrastructures. The recently published report "Achieving Depth: Submarine Telecommunications Cables as Critical Infrastructure" was written by ATHENE researcher Jonas Franken (PEASEC/TU Darmstadt) in collaboration with Dr. Camino Kavanagh (King's College London) and Wenting He (UNIDIR).
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ATHENE paper accepted at prestigious S&P
The paper "Investigating Voter Perceptions of Printed Physical Audit Trails for Online Voting", written in collaboration with ATHENE researchers, has been accepted at the prestigious IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P). S&P is the premier forum for leading international experts in research and practice to discuss the latest developments in computer security and electronic privacy.
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