SUNRISE endowed professorship for IoT Security

Since the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the associated - ever-increasing - networking, IT security has affected all industries and all areas of life. In the course of this development, the Master's degree program IT Security has been dealing with the topic of IoT security and awareness-building in non-industry domains for some time: On the one hand, the ELVIS Lab (Embedded Lab Vienna for IoT & Security) was successfully established at Hochschule Campus Wien and supports students and lecturers from all disciplines, and on the other hand, a conference on the topic was developed that not only has a specialist audience as its target group, but is also interdisciplinary in nature (IT-S NOW!). The idea for the IoT Security endowed professorship was formed during the ELVIS project and was manifested and confirmed during the preliminary surveys for the PETE-S project.

As part of the project, the focus will now be on developing expertise in IT security as it relates to devices (things) and their communication. An endowed chair in network security has already been successfully established—this will now be complemented by the “IoT Security” endowed chair, enabling its integration into other academic disciplines. IoT security requires not only in-depth knowledge of IT security but also of embedded systems and, consequently, their interaction, along with wireless protocols. The ELVIS Lab provides an excellent foundation for this.
The focus is on the following topics:

• Wireless Communications (Bluetooth Low Energy, NFC)
• IoT Penetration Testing
• Programming of Hardware Security Modules (HSM)
• Cryptography on Constrained Devices

These areas of focus will be incorporated into or expanded upon in the curriculum of the Master’s program in IT Security as part of the endowed professorship to meet the current needs of the industry. The research component of the professorship will focus on the security aspects of the new Bluetooth Low Energy standard, as well as on the practical and theoretical evaluation of various HSM approaches in the IoT environment. The goal is to develop solutions that are simple and transparent for users, yet secure, for the practical use of IoT devices in everyday life.