In a packed lecture hall in Saarbrücken, Prof. Dr. Michael Pradel and Dr. Lucjan Hanzlik marked their debut as tenured CISPA-Faculty, sharing accessible insights into software security, AI, and privacy-preserving digital identities. Congratulations to both!

🎙️ CISPA TL;DR – Episode 46 Can AI make fair decisions if the world it learns from isn’t fair? CISPA researcher Tẹjúmádé Àfọ̀njá explains why more accurate AI doesn’t automatically mean fairer outcomes – and why representation in AI matters. ⚖️🤖 🎧 Listen now: cispa.de/en/tldr-46

Research insights: Security headers help browsers defend against common attacks. A study by CISPA researcher Jannis Rautenstrauch & team shows browsers now interpret them far more consistently than in the past. They also released an open-source testing framework. cispa.de/en/security-...

24 hours of intense teamwork in Vienna 🇦🇹 Students and early-career researchers tackled real AI & cybersecurity challenges and turned feedback into solutions—fast. Next up: Barcelona, Apr 11–12. Registrations are open. cispa.de/en/cispa-hac...

At the first extended in-person meeting at DZNE in Bonn, clinical neurology & machine learning joined forces. The project develops an privacy-preserving AI to support stroke treatment. Liberate AI is supported by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the @helmholtz.de.

Dr. Adam Kortylewski brings new expertise in visual computing to CISPA! He joined ums from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in November 2025. His vision: AI should support humans, not replace them. @adamkortylewski.bsky.social ➡️ Read the article here: www.cispa.de/en/new-faculty-kortylewski

Call for Papers: MetaCRiSP Workshop (Security & Privacy). A venue for metascience and critical reflection on research and peer-review practices in security & privacy. Workshop: May 21, 2026 · San Francisco. (47th IEEE S&P) Deadline: Feb 12, 2026. More here: metacrisp.org @mu00d8.bsky.social

🌍 CISPA Summer School goes South Africa 🇿🇦 From February 16–18, 2026, the CISPA-UCT Summer School “AI, Security & Privacy” brings students and early-career researchers from computer science, cybersecurity, and AI together at the University of Cape Town. 👉 cispa.de/summer-schoo...

🏆 Broyden Prize for Stochastic Distributed Learning with Gradient Quantization and Double-Variance Reduction. Samuel Horváth, Dmitry Kovalev, Konstantin Mishchenko, Peter Richtárik & CISPA-Faculty Sebastian Stich. 👉Read the paper here: cispa.de/en/research/...

🎧 (German) Media recommendation: Daycare centers are increasingly targeted by cybercriminals. Ransomware attacks put highly sensitive data of children and families at risk. 💻🔒 Listen here to get CISPA researcher @fh4ntke.bsky.social insights on this topic: www.deutschlandfunk.de/datensicherh...

Welcome to CISPA, @simongregersen.com! Simon is starting in the Reliable Security Guarantees research area. #newfaculty

Even highly protected Confidential VMs aren‘t as isolated as expected. CISPA researcher @rayiizzz.bsky.social and his colleagues from the group of @misc0110.bsky.social introduce StackWarp, a new attack against AMD Zen 1–5 CPUs that breaks the integrity of Confidential VMs. stackwarpattack.com

☀️ From code to coastline: the CISPA European Hackathon Championship will come to Barcelona. For 24 hours, teams will dive into real-world challenges at the intersection of cybersecurity & AI — focused, collaborative, and hands-on. 👉 Join the challenge now: cispa.de/en/cispa-hac...

🎧 German podcast tip 🎧 In the latest “Forschungsquartett” episode, CISPA-Faculty Dr. Katharina Krombholz explains why digital security must be designed inclusively. Produced by detektor.fm in cooperation with CISPA. 👉 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts! @detektorfm.bsky.social

Dr. Jane Im, new CISPA tenure-track faculty (since fall 2025), studies how social media can be redesigned around consent—making power relations visible and giving users more agency. Her research blends feminist theory, system design, and alternatives to ad-based platforms. cispa.de/new-faculty-im

Modern ARM-based CPUs block many classic attacks, but information leaks remain. In CISPA TL;DR #45 (German), Fabian Thomas explains timerless cache attacks and how ExfilState uncovers hidden side channels. Now available on all major podcast platforms and here: cispa.de/en/tldr-episode-45 🎧

In a process optimization seminar, our employees worked together to make workflows more efficient, sharpen structures, and develop practical solutions for everyday work. What matters most to us? Continuous development, open communication, and the opportunity to actively shape processes.

Exosuits already assist in tasks, but they reach their limits in the complexity of everyday life. CISPA researcher Julian Rodemann, together with colleagues from LMU Munich and Harvard, is developing a machine learning approach that finds personalized settings and explains them. cispa.de/en/exosuits

🍵✨ At CISPA, we love moments where colleagues can connect, exchange ideas, and discover new cultures. Our tea tasting, hosted by Wouter, was just that! Colleagues explored white, green, oolong, black & pu-erh teas, enjoyed Sinterklaas treats, and shared a cozy atmosphere.

🎉 Congratulations to the winners! 👏 🏆 You did an amazing job 🙌   🎉 First prize goes to the team: !!1337   🎉 Second prize goes to the team: 4braincells   🎉 Third prize goes to the team: SarAI

The excitement builds! Final presentation of the best 6 teams 🎬 Now every point counts. Who is going to convince the jury? 🎤 #CISPAEuropeanHackathonChampionship

All tasks have been submitted 😀 Now the best 6 teams have one hour to prepare a final presentation and to compete for the Grand Final in St. Ingbert. #CISPAEuropeanHackathonChampionship

💻 Intensive coding requires good food 🍕 Pizza and vitamines for everyone to have enough power for the night. 💪 And an emergency bed if coffeine does not work 😅 #CISPAEuropeanHackathonChampionship

Researching, coding, testing ⌨️ After setting up the technical infrastructure, the teams dive into the concrete topics. 🕹️ From now on, every hour counts. #CISPAEuropeanHackathonChampionship

A warm welcome to all participants! All teams registered, got their tasks and are ready to dive into the challenges 💻 We wish you good luck for the challenges! 💪 #CISPAEuropeanHackathonChampionship

🇦🇹 Servus Vienna!   💻 We are ready to kick off the second regional CISPA European AI & Cybersecurity Hackathon Championship! 🎬 Stay tuned and join us in getting excited about the competition! #CISPAEuropeanHackathonChampionship

🌏 Call for Submissions: SPAIC 2026 along the AsiaCCS 2026 CISPA-Faculty Katharina Krombholz and Mainack Mondal invite contributions on security & privacy in diverse Asian contexts. Submit papers before end of Jan 2026. 🔗 spaicworkshop.github.io

Welcome to CISPA, Thorsten Eisenhofer! @eisenhofer.bsky.social #newfaculty

👏 Congrats to CISPA-Faculty Rayna Dimitrova on her ERC Consolidator Grant! Her Project SyReP advances synthesis methods for reactive systems that must reliably handle complex real-world inputs. More: cispa.de/en/erc-grant-rayna @erc.europa.eu

🏆 Congrats to CISPA-Faculty Michael Pradel & researcher Islem Bouzenia on the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award for their work on understanding how AI coding agents think and make decisions. More about the paper: cispa.de/en/research/...

Shortly after welcoming Giray Yağlıkçı as a new Faculty at CISPA, we already have another reason to celebrate: he has been awarded the 2025 ACM SIGMICRO Dissertation Award for his doctoral thesis. Watch his short talk on the topic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOPq...

Study reveals cultural bias in AI image models. CISPA researcher Tẹjúmádé Àfọ̀njá & international team show: AI models generate realistic images of dishes from some regions — while producing distorted results for others. Their remedy: a community-driven dataset. Read more: cispa.de/en/afonja-wo...

CISPA faculty Dr. Nils Ole Tippenhauer joined the main panel at the Saarland Security Forum to discuss today’s cybersecurity challenges and why strong research, tech transfer, and education matter for a safer society.

Congratulations to our CEO and Founding Director Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Michael Backes, who received an honorary doctorate from the Leibniz University Hannover last night! Read more at cispa.de/en/backes-lu...

⚔️ Winter is coming… to Stockholm! Join the Cybersecurity & AI Hackathon Championship (Feb 14–15). Prove your skills, claim your throne 👑 (and €€€), and hack your way to glory. 👉 Register today – before the gates close! cispa.de/en/cispa-hac...

Congratulations! We are delighted that @andreaszeller.bsky.social will be elevated to IEEE Fellow on January. This is the highest grade of membership in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. This recognition highlights once more the excellent research that is carried out at CISPA.

CSS makes emails look nice – but it could also threaten your privacy. In the latest TL;DR episode, Leon Trampert explains how our inboxes might be spying on us and if IKEA newsletters are actually dangerous. Now on all your favorite podcast platforms! cispa.de/en/TLDR-44

✨ 24h hackathon in Paris: 47 participants, 3 AI & cybersecurity challenges. Intense teamwork led 3 teams to qualify for the finals in St. Ingbert. Next stop: Vienna, Dec 13–14. cispa.de/en/cispa-hac...

🌍 Forschen für einen lebenswerten Planeten: Dr. Rebekka Burkholz vom @cispa.de arbeitet zum Ressourcenverbrauch von künstlicher Intelligenz. Lernen Sie weitere #Helmholtz -Forschende kennen, die mit ihrer Arbeit die Ziele des #ParisAgreement unterstützen. ➡️ bit.ly/4nrVgC0 #AI #MachineLearning

🚀 Merci Paris! 🇫🇷 Successful start for the CISPA European Cybersecurity & AI Hackathon Championship at the Grande Arche in Paris. Three teams qualified for the final in St. Ingbert in 2026 during the 24-hour hackathon. Read more here: cispa.de/en/cispa-hac...

Named one of Germany’s “Top 40 under 40”! 🎉 Dr. @misc0110.bsky.social is honored by Capital for pioneering work on microarchitectural side-channel attacks that reshaped security in modern processors and OSes. Learn more: cispa.de/en/top40under40

Congratulations to Dr. Lucjan Hanzlik! The cryptography expert has successfully completed the tenure track at CISPA and is now a tenured senior scientist. You can find a short interview with him on our website. cispa.de/en/hanzlik-t...

🚀 Behind the Scenes of the European Hackathon Championship. We spoke with CISPA-Faculty Dr. Franziska Boenisch and Dr. Adam Dziedzic, the minds behind this initiative, about how the championship came to life and its connection to their research. Read the interview here: cispa.de/en/interview...

Congratulations to our CEO and Founding Director Professor Dr. Dr. h. c. Michael Backes, who received the “TUM Distinguished Affiliated Professorship” from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) last night! Read more at cispa.de/en/backes-di...

🎉 5 Years of the CISPA Cysec Lab – Making Cybersecurity Tangible! 🚀 Yesterday, we celebrated the fifth anniversary of the CISPA Cysec Lab under the motto “Cookies, Code & Confetti – Experiencing 5 Years of Cybersecurity.” ➡️ Find more infos here: cispa.de/en/5-years-c...

🚀 CISPA European Cybersecurity & AI Hackathon, Vienna | Dec 13–14, 2025. Collaborate with Europe’s top minds, tackle cutting-edge challenges & explore the future of AI & cybersecurity. Sign up now: cispa.de/en/cispa-hac... #CISPA #Hackathon #Cybersecurity #AI

After ten formative years, Wiestler is stepping down as President of @helmholtz.de. From the very beginning, Mr. Wiestler has been an important companion on our journey. His trust and support have meant an incredible amount for the development of our center. We wish you all the best.

ELSA is growing: Fifteen exciting members joined our network! Find out who on our website: elsa-ai.eu/elsa-welcome... Welcome to ELSA.🤝 #ELSAAI @ellis.eu

Research Insights 👀: How do blind and low-vision users manage passwords? 🔐 A study by CISPA reseracher Alexander Ponticello finds: • Password managers are widely used • Barriers still persist • Inclusion must guide security design More info: cispa.de/en/accessibi...

30 New PhD Students Join During This Fall’s Kickoff Days 
We are dedicated to creating an inspiring environment where early career researchers can grow, connect and pursue their academic and professional goals. Twice a year, our PhD Kickoff Days give PhD students the perfect start to their journey.