TUM and Fraunhofer expand cybersecurity research activities

It will play a key role in the expansion of the burgeoning digital research hub in Garching. In recent decades, Munich and the State of Bavaria have transformed into a leading European and global tech hub. As part of the region’s “Bayern Digital” strategic investment program for digitalisation, the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security (AISEC) cybersecurity research centre is just one of several new facilities planned for the Garching research campus north of Munich in coming years.

When it goes into operation in early 2019, the centre will provide cutting-edge security laboratory and test environments. The new AISEC building is being constructed in the direct vicinity of Technical University of Munich (TUM) campus buildings in Garching – a proximity that is intended to enhance and extend research collaboration between AISEC and the TUM Department of Informatics.

In this way, close cooperation between academic and applied research will continue to result in innovative security solutions – for companies in Bavaria and across Germany and Europe.

Fraunhofer AISEC is co-directed by two TUM professors and world-renowned IT and cybersecurity experts: Prof. Claudia Eckert, Chair for IT Security with the Department of Informatics and Prof. Georg Sigl, Chair of Security in Information Technology with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

To mark the cornerstone ceremony, the two institute directors were joined by Ilse Aigner, Bavarian State Minister of Economic Affairs and Media, Energy and Technology, TUM President Prof. Wolfgang Herrmann and Fraunhofer President, Prof. Reimund Neugebauer, together with around 100 guests from AISEC, TUM and other institutional and industry partners.

Minister Aigner, who heads the digitalisation initiative for the state of Bavaria, emphasised “How ideally the applied research activities at AISEC dovetail with our digitalisation initiative, ‘Bayern Digital.’

Under the auspices of our cybersecurity platform at the Zentrum Digitalisierung.Bayern (Bavarian Centre for Digital-isation),” she added, “We’ve very deliberately put the focus on IT security.

As part of our digitalisation masterplan, we are set to expand our activities in this area.” Construction of the new research centre is being subsidised by the Bavarian Ministry for Economic Affairs and Media, Energy and Technology through the “Bayern Digital” investment program.

President Herrmann noted that “The new Fraunhofer AISEC research centre will build upon the work and expertise of two of TUM’s top professors. In the leadership of their respective chairs, both Prof. Claudia Eckert and Prof. Georg Sigl – both renowned experts in the field of informatics and information technology – have driven the development of cybersecurity into an interdisciplinary research focal point across university departments.” Additionally, said Herrmann, “Of course it takes the best and brightest in their field to create new ideas and structures – this is the ideal foundation for the future of cybersecurity re-search at the new Fraunhofer AISEC facility at the Garching campus.”