Security and Privacy

Open Topics

The following contains currently open thesis topics in our areas of research. If you are interested in a topic or have a thesis idea of your own that might fit our research interests, please contact us directly.

Consensus algorithms

Implementation and/or liveness and safety analysis of DAG-based consensus protocols (e.g., Narwhal/Bullshark, Mysticeti)
Development or improvement of a reliable broadcast library for high-throughput, application-agnostic use as a basis for simple payment systems and DAG-based consensus
MEV (maximal…

Security and Privacy of Decentralized Systems and DLTs

Cryptographic key security and usability

Password managers, cryptocurrency wallets, HSMs, TPMs, and secure enclaves
State of the art, limitations, and open challenges in (cryptocurrency) hardware wallets
Post-quantum migration strategies for long-lived keys
Key management requirements and techniques for autonomous AI agents

Please contact …

Security and Privacy of Decentralized Systems and DLTs

Cybersecurity Knowledge Graph Generation with LLMs

Cybersecurity knowledge graphs (KGs) provide structured representations of threats, vulnerabilities, and attack techniques. This topic explores how LLMs and rule-based methods can be combined to construct, validate, and reason over cybersecurity knowledge graphs.

Machine Learning/AI and Security

Decentralized storage and content addressing

Security and availability analysis of decentralized storage systems (e.g., IPFS, Filecoin, Arweave, Storj, ...)

Please contact Aljosha Judmayer.

Security and Privacy of Decentralized Systems and DLTs

Digital payment methods

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs): privacy properties and design trade-offs
Decentralized cryptocurrency asset transfer systems with privacy and compliance properties

Please contact Aljosha Judmayer.

Security and Privacy of Decentralized Systems and DLTs

Fine-Tuning and Adaptation of LLMs for Cybersecurity

Adapting LLMs to cybersecurity tasks requires domain-specific training. This topic explores fine-tuning and adaptation strategies for improving performance in cybersecurity applications.

Machine Learning/AI and Security

Instant messaging security

Analysis of existing schemes under practical deployment conditions
Measurements, proof-of-concept implementations, analysis tooling, or exploit
Improvement of existing protocols or design and evaluation of new countermeasures
Protocols of interest include but are not limited to Signal/WhatsApp, Matrix,…

Security and Privacy of Decentralized Systems and DLTs

LLMs for Code analysis

Using LLMs to recover semantic information (variable names, types, etc) from stripped or obfuscated binaries
Prompting strategies and context-window management for whole-program reasoning
Measuring hallucination rates

Please contact Sebastian Schrittwieser.

Software Protection

LLMs for software protection

Generating obfuscating transformations with LLMs
LLM-driven diversification to defeat pattern-based attacks
Using LLMs as a "red team" oracle to evaluate the strength of applied protections

Please contact Sebastian Schrittwieser.

Software Protection

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