Paris, Vienna, Stockholm, Munich, Barcelona, Warsaw – and finally, home. The CISPA European Cybersecurity & AI Hackathon Championship wrapped up its first edition with a Grand Finale at CISPA. A journey worth watching. youtu.be/BXij1Vmycp4

It's a wrap - the first CISPA European Cybersecurity & AI Hackathon Championship

YouTube video by CISPA

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Since 2025, Nina Altmaier has been strengthening CISPA as Head of Alumni Engagement. While completing her PhD, she began establishing our alumni program. Now, she is building a strong network that connects alumni, researchers, and the CISPA community. Read more: www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-ques...

5 Questions to Nina Altmaier

Since December 2025, Nina Altmaier has been strengthening the CISPA–Helmholtz Center for Information Security as Head of Alumni Engagement. While finishing up her PhD in digital media at the Universit...

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Whether in the cinema🍿 or through exchange with the next generation of scientists🎓 – July showed the many different ways research at CISPA can be experienced. Thank you to everyone involved and all visitors who made these events possible.

Congrats to CISPA-Faculty Prof. Cas Cremers, Prof. David Basin, Dr. Benedikt Schmidt, and Dr. Simon Meier on receiving the 2026 CSF Test-of-Time Award for their 2012 paper „Automated Analysis of Diffie-Hellman Protocols and Advanced Security Properties” 👏 More: cispa.de/en/test-of-time-award

Test-of-Time Award for CISPA-Faculty Cas Cremers and Colleagues from ETH Zurich

Honor for Sustained Scientific Impact at the IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium

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After six regional qualifiers across Europe, the first CISPA European Cybersecurity & AI Hackathon Championship reached its conclusion in early July. 🎥 Watch some of the highlights from the championship final in the video below. youtu.be/RIb8MHICsPY

The Grand Finale of the CISPA European Cybersecurity & AI Hackathon Championship

YouTube video by CISPA

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CISPA Researcher Warns Against One-Size-Fits-All Age Verification Online We spoke with Dr. Wouter Lueks about the findings of his recent study on age assurance technologies, their effectiveness, and trade-offs for privacy and civil liberties. 🔗 Read the full interview: cispa.de/en/interview-lueks

Conversation with Dr. Wouter Lueks

CISPA researcher Dr. Wouter Lueks has assessed effectiveness, side-effects and acceptance of age assurance technologies (AAT).

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Can removing images of children from AI training datasets prevent text-to-image models from generating CSAM? New research by CISPA-Faculty Dr. @ana-mariacretu.bsky.social shows that dataset filtering provides only limited protection & can be circumvented. cispa.de/en/cretu-dataset-filtering

Dataset Filtering Provides Only Limited Protection Against CSAM Generation in Text-to-Image Models

CISPA-Faculty Dr. Ana-Maria Cretu investigated whether removing images of children from training datasets is an effective method.

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We're ready for ICML 2026! 🚀 From July 6–11, we'll be in Seoul at the 43rd International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2026), where our researchers will present numerous papers. Find an overview of all our ICML 2026 papers here: cispa.de/en/icml-2026

Congrats to @andreaszeller.bsky.social for receiving his 11th Impact Paper Award at FSE 2026 in Montréal today! He is honored for the SZZ-algorithm, which he presented together with Jacek Śliwerski and Thomas Zimmermann in 2005. Read our interview with Andreas at cispa.de/en/interview...

“I have high standards when it comes to coolness”: In conversation with Professor Dr. Andreas Zeller

Today, Andreas Zeller will receive the 11th Impact Paper Award of his career at the ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering. These special awards are reserved for scien...

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What a great week for the wireless security community🔒📡 CISPA had the pleasure of hosting the 19. @acm.org WiSec 2026 in Saarbrücken. Special thanks go to our CISPA Faculty, Mridula Singh and Nils Ole Tippenhauer, who served as the General Chairs of WiSec. We were delighted to welcome the community!

Team from Sweden Takes the Title at the First Hackathon Championship After 24 hours of coding and scientific creativity, the first-ever CISPA European Cybersecurity & AI Hackathon Championship has come to a successful close. Congratulations to the winning teams! cispa.de/en/hackathon...

Team from Sweden Takes the Title at the First CISPA European Cybersecurity and AI Hackathon Championship

The first CISPA European Cybersecurity & AI Hackathon Championship concluded today with a ceremonial awards presentation at the Ingobertus Festival.

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Inside the Research Ethics Office at CISPA: In our latest interview, Thorsten Helfer and Jannik Zeiser talk about their academic roots in philosophy, their role and remit at the Research Ethics Office, and the challenges of applied ethics. Find the interview at cispa.de/en/interview...

"Ethical responsibility is an integral part of academic freedom": In conversation with Thorsten Helfer and Jannik Zeiser

Since July 2024, Thorsten Helfer and Jannik Zeiser have been establishing and expanding the Research Ethics Office at CISPA. As trained philosophers, both enjoy delving into the challenges of applied ...

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How promising—and dangerous—is AI in Cybersecurity? This question was discussed in the workshop “AI in Cybersecurity: Offensive Capabilities, Impacts, and Response Strategies” organised by CISPA-Faculty Mario Fritz. Recordings of the talks are now online! Have a look: youtu.be/waqc5HA676U

Workshop "AI in Cybersecurity:Offensive Capabilities, Impacts & Response Strategies" – Introduction

YouTube video by ELSA – European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI

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ELSA – European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI@elsa-ai.eu · 2mo ago

Now online – Recordings of the workshop "AI in Cybersecurity: Offensive Capabilities, Impacts, and Response Strategies"! Watch the inspiring talks about the good, the bad, and the helpful aspects of #AI in #Cybersecurity. Watch them now: youtu.be/waqc5HA676U

What happens when AI models increasingly train on AI-generated content? Researchers fear a phenomenon known as Model Collapse, where information can gradually be lost over time. Louis Kerner developed BitMark to help keep AI-generated images identifiable. 🎧 More in the latest CISPA TL;DR episode.

CISPA now has its very own Research Ethics Review Board! It’s a resource for all our researchers and provides a structured process for the reflection of ethical challenges. Read more about how we approach research ethics at cispa.de/en/research-...

A Unicorn in Cybersecurity

At CISPA, two trained philosophers dedicate themselves to the discussion and assessment of ethics issues in cybersecurity research. Thorsten Helfer and Jannik Zeiser have been tasked with establishing...

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CISPA-Faculty Mario Fritz has been appointed to the Scientific Panel of the EU AI Office. A newly established body, the Scientific Panel brings together world-leading experts to support the implementation of the EU AI Act. More at cispa.de/en/fritz-eu-...

More than 45 international organization representatives visited CISPA to explore cutting-edge cybersecurity research. The delegation accompanied President Steinmeier during his visit to Saarland. From satellite security to cryptography, and tech transfer, the visit sparked valuable global exchange.

AI labels seem to be the preferred way to foster trust and create transparency. But can they really deliver on that promise? In a recent study, CISPA researcher Sandra Höltervennhoff found that the effects of AI labels are ambivalent. Read more here: cispa.de/user-study-ai-labels

Transparency Is Not the Same as Truth: What Platforms Need to Consider When Labeling AI-Generated Images

A CISPA study examines how users perceive so-called AI labels and what impact these labels have on the credibility of information.

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Whether in research, transfer, or administration – May once again showed: CISPA is shaped by the people who make our research center what it is. 💙

And here’s some more good news: Congratulations also to Thorsten Eisenhofer on receiving a Distinguished Reviewer Award at the 47th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 🎉

Strong results for CISPA at the 47th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 🏆 Multiple papers and contributions were recognized with awards at the leading conference for security and privacy research. Congratulations to all involved on this international success! More info: cispa.de/en/sandp-2026

We keep pushing AI systems to perform better, but do we know their limits? CISPA-Faculty Dr. Andrew Lowy researches what ML can achieve under privacy and fairness constraints and where further optimization stops making sense. Want to learn more? Visit: cispa.de/en/andrew-lowy

Today at @sp.ieee-security.org, CISPA researcher Marcos Bajo presents “Segmentation Fault Oriented Programming (SFOP)”, a novel code-reuse attack that bypasses Intel CET in Linux systems, spawning segmentation faults in sequence. More at cispa.de/en/sfop

At @sp.ieee-security.org, CISPA researcher Apostolos Chatzianagnostou presents PLaTypus, a new protection layer for Intel CET that restricts unsafe cross-library control flows used in modern code-reuse attacks. More: cispa.de/en/platypus

From processor vulnerabilities and AI side-channel attacks to privacy risks in URL scanning services: CISPA researchers are presenting 14 papers at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P 2026) in San Francisco. More: cispa.de/en/sandp-2026

Six cities. Hundreds of participants. One European hackathon community. 🌍💻 The CISPA European Hackathon Championship wrapped up in Warsaw. Students coded, built & solved 24-hour sessions. Now it’s time for the next stop—the Grand Hackathon Finale at CISPA! 🚀 Full recap: cispa.de/en/news-and-...

Where the future meets history: we’re going to Rome! 🇮🇹 The historic city of Rome is hosting Eurocrypt 2026 on May 10 - May 14. As every year, CISPA researchers are part of the conference program with several papers. Find the full list of our Eurocrypt 2026 papers here: cispa.de/en/research/...

👀 Research insights: A CISPA study highlights privacy and security risks of on-body interaction techniques and presents guidelines to help prevent harm. Read more: cispa.de/en/on-body-interaction-techniques

Future Risks: Privacy and Security in On-Body Interaction Techniques

Which risks arise when body-worn mini computers become part of everyday life? This is the question that CISPA researcher Dañiel Gerhardt has investigated.

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DNS is trustworthy—but there is a semantic gap we still need to address. That was the key takeaway from Michael Bailey’s recent talk at CISPA’s Distinguished Lecture Series. More in the video. Want to learn more? Check out all of our DLS events - cispa.de/en/news-and-...

No fewer than two scientific papers were honored this month 🏆 – a strong sign of the international visibility and impact of our excellent research. Congratulations to dear Sandra and dear @andreaszeller.bsky.social!