Article from Research in Bavaria: New Solutions for the Industry of the Future – Digital Twins and Cybersecurity Strategies for the Modern World of Work

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The GFA is honoured to be spotlighted in this wonderful article by Vera Spaett from Research in Bavaria.

Here the part regarding the GFA:

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A group of people standing in front of the ferries wheel in Munich.
Participants of the 2nd GFA Future-IoT PhD school on the topic “IoT meets AI” in Munich in September 2019.

A Joint German-French Project Targeting Commercial Success

In 2016, TUM co-founded another long-term project, the German-French Academy for the Industry of the Future (GFA), with the aim of preparing and strengthening industry in France and Germany. The GFA is the result of close cooperation on research, education, and innovation between TUM and the Institut Mines-Télécom (IMT)—the biggest grande école in France, which has campuses across the country.

Since the project started, teams comprised of German and French researchers have collaborated on over 27 research projects, jointly supporting the education of students and doctoral candidates.

“The GFA is a vibrant forum for exchange and international understanding. A whole host of motivated people are putting a lot of energy into strengthening German-French research cooperation,” says Professor Marc-Oliver Pahl, holder of the Chair of Cybersecurity for Critical Networked Infrastructures at IMT. He knows both university partners in the GFA well, having worked at TUM from 2008 to 2019 before accepting a professorship with IMT Atlantique in France.

Graduate Opportunities with the GFA

The GFA’s mission is to strengthen the life-long learning of international students and doctoral candidates, as well as working professionals, around the changes underway in the world of work and the digitalization of the economy. As part of German-French collaboration, the GFA co-organizes PhD schools as well as workshops and hackathons for international students, doctoral candidates, and other researchers in conjunction with industry partners.

Pahl is a member of the GFA steering committee and provides advice on future educational activities at the GFA. He has been teaching students and engaging with digital learning formats for many years, having played a pioneering role in the field of eLearning. The GFA therefore offers free digital learning formats, such as MOOCs, on topics such as the future of work.

Robot walking in a virtual reality environment
A smart assistant robot acts as a guide through the cybersecurity jungle in the virtual reality environment.
Prof. Pahl wearing virtual-reality-glasses
Professor Pahl in an Augmented Reality Security Operation Center with data projected onto his smart glasses.

The TRUE-VIEW Project: Enhanced Cybersecurity Through the Metaverse

Another way of connecting with the GFA is by engaging with its research projects. With computer systems becoming increasingly ubiquitous, data is increasingly collected and processed sometimes without us even realizing. In a recent project called TRUE-VIEW, Pahl and his team explored how the metaverse could be used to raise awareness about invisible data collection and processing.

In the metaverse, users wear headsets to enter collaborative virtual worlds. As part of this work, the team developed several extended reality (XR) interfaces with virtual and augmented reality (VR, AR) as proofs of concept. The scientists created scenarios that provided a virtual representation of Wi-Fi signals at the TUM Department of Informatics, as well as of data processing in factory automation systems and ambient data processing in classrooms, all using 3D headsets.

GFA Seed Funding a Pathway to Career Success

The TRUE-VIEW project led to Pahl’s involvement in the joint Horizon Europe “CyberSecDome” project, which includes 13 partners including TUM and IMT and over €6 million in funding. The GFA also awards seed funding to promising high-risk project ideas to support the preparation of applications for more extensive grants, such as those awarded by the EU and gained by Pahl. Its research topics include Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Manufacturing, and Network Systems. Over 35 large and medium-sized companies from Germany and France work with the GFA. “It’s wonderful to see so many industrial and academic entities wanting to partner with us. Nothing could illustrate the GFA’s success better,” says Pahl.

Please find the full article here: https://www.research-in-bavaria.de/industry-of-the-future

Female Founders Focus with Flore de Durfort

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Female Founders Focus @ GFA Startup LEX:
Flore de Durfort, Co-Founder at Point Twelve Energy: “In moments of doubt, I like to remind myself that being an entrepreneur means remaining an active player in my own life – and that I can hardly lose at that game.” Read the full interview here!

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Female Founders Focus with Barbara Praehofer

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Female Founders Focus @ GFA Startup LEX:
Barbara Praehofer, Co-Founder at ExoMatter: “Be brave and bold. Go out with your idea and inspire people with your vision and your product.” Read the full interview here!

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Female Founders Focus with Flora Geske

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Female Founders Focus @ GFA Startup LEX: Flora Geske, Co-Founder at SUMM AI: “Find a problem you are very passionate about and make it your goal to solve it as big and impactful as possible.” Read the full interview here!

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French-German Tech Lab @ VivaTechnology 2023

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We are happy to be co-organizers of the French-German Tech Lab on this year’s edition of the biggest Startup Event in Europe “VivaTechnology 2023”. See you there!

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Workshop on Human-centered AI: “How to enable a bilateral communication between Human and Machine?” June 27, 2023

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Like & Share! Join our Future Industry Workshop with @AKKODIS on June 27 in the Factory Berlin! We are talking about #humancentered #AI ! Check the link for more info & registration

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[TALK31] Enabling Machine-to-Machine Crypto Economy – Kemal Akkaya (FIU, USA)

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On Fri, May 12th, 2023, 3pm CET, Kemal Akkaya (Florida International University, USA), will talk about “Enabling Machine-to-Machine Crypto Economy“. You are cordially invited to come or join the free live stream on youtube and LinkedIn! Please share the link https://talk.cybercni.fr/31 with your interested friends!

Trailer: https://youtu.be/qeWtIY3X2A4
LinkedIN Event: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7061340540599971840
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/769049331352499/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwkWFueBBAU?list=PLdftPKA9mTfaDJxqwexil2mPhUFIA9ITd
Stream redirect (for every edition): https://TALK.cyberCNI.fr/stream

Newsletter with invitations: Subscription on https://TALK.cyberCNI.fr

Help us spreading the news

The best talks are those with an interested diverse audience! Therefore, please use the following media to spread the news in your networks: 

Thank you!

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) devices from tiny sensors to autonomous cars are becoming an indispensable part of life. To create an effective IoT ecosystem, it is critical to enable paid data and service sharing among IoT devices which will require the ability to make a machine-to-machine (M2M) payment to a service provider for services such as parking, vehicle charging, sensor data sale, internet sharing, vending machine among others. Since this ecosystem will be dependent on financial micro-transactions among IoT devices, a reliable payment system without human intervention is desirable for a seamless experience. As IoT evolves over time, cryptocurrencies, in particular Bitcoin, can play a critical role by serving as digital money in creating such an M2M economy. The successful integration of IoT and Bitcoin technologies will foster this M2M economy by introducing novel applications such as automated payment among sensing devices, and programmable financial transactions for consumer electronics. Nevertheless, this brings many new challenges to be tackled as it is imperative to have cost and space-efficient real-time cryptocurrency solutions for resource constrained IoT devices. In this talk, we will first discuss the elements of M2M crypto economy and then present some solutions that can enable making Bitcoin transactions from IoT devices through Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN) and how LN solutions can be helpful in making offline transactions among IoT devices. 

Watch the trailer here.

Kemal Akkaya

Dr. Kemal Akkaya is a full professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with a joint courtesy appointment in the School of Computer and Information Sciences at Florida International University (FIU). He received his PhD in Computer Science from University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2005 and joined the department of Computer Science at Southern Illinois University (SIU) as an assistant professor. Dr. Akkaya was an associate professor at SIU from 2011 to 2014.  Dr. Akkaya leads the Advanced Wireless and Security Lab (ADWISE) in the ECE Dept. His current research interests include security and privacy, internet-of-things, and cyber-physical systems.  He is the EiC of Springer Computer Science journal, area editor of Elsevier Ad Hoc Network and Computer Networks Journal and serves on the editorial board of IEEE Communication Surveys and Tutorials. Dr. Akkaya was the General Chair of IEEE LCN 2018 and TPC Chair for IEEE ICC Smart Grid Communications.  Dr. Akkaya was listed among the top 2% scientists in the world according to a Stanford University study in 2019. He also received FIU Faculty Senate Excellence in Research Award and FIU College of Engineering and Computing Research Award both in 2020. Dr. Akkaya is a Fellow of IEEE.

About Florida International University (FIU)

FIU is Miami’s public research university. Offering bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, both on campus and fully online, FIU is worlds ahead in its service to the academic and local community. Designated as a top-tier research institution, FIU emphasizes research as a major component in the university’s mission. For over four decades, FIU has positioned itself as one of South Florida’s anchor institutions by solving some of the greatest challenges of our time. It is dedicated to enriching the lives of the local and global community. With a student body of more than 56,000, FIU is among the top 10 largest universities in the US and has collectively graduated more than 275,000 alumni, 165,000 of whom live and work in South Florida.

Talk.cybercni.fr

The Cyber CNI Lecture Series is a free monthly event that typically takes place on the last Wednesday of the month from 2pm to 3h30pm CET.

The event consists of a 45-minute expert presentation followed by a 45-minute discussion.

The Cyber CNI Speaker series aims to raise awareness and understanding of cyber security issues among all audiences. It aims to enable an ongoing dialogue between experts from industry and academia and the general public (citizens, families, small and large businesses, public organizations, etc.). All of us are concerned.

The events are broadcast live on Youtube (https://talk.cybercni.fr/) and LinkedIn, allowing worldwide remote participation – including a tool to participate in the discussion.

You can add the event calendar via ICS, webcal, HTML.

How the digital transformation is changing our lives

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown all of us the benefits of information technology. It allows us to work at a distance, to live at a distance, and most importantly, to keep in touch at a distance – with younger and older people, those closest to us, and even make new contacts.

Our society relies more and more on information and operational technologies. Examples include water, energy, heat and cooling supply, communications, healthcare, production and processing of goods, transportation, national security, banking, research and education, and food production.

What all these areas have in common is that they make intensive use of networked distributed computer systems. These systems can be attacked in many ways. This is no longer just a problem for computer “pros” because computer systems are essential to all of us. The effects of “cyber-attacks” range from power outages to the collapse of the health care or banking sectors.

Program and registration: https://talk.cybercni.fr/

Call for proposals: Education & Knowledge 2023

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Context of the Call for Proposals

The digital revolution has drastically changed the landscape of industries, paving the way the for Industry of the Future. With the emergence of advanced technologies and increased automation, it has become imperative for higher education institutions to incorporate up-to-date learning formats to meet the skill-set demands of current industrial needs. Alongside traditional classroom teaching, innovative learning methodologies such as workshops, hackathons and PhD schools are gaining importance. Hackathons are commonly used to cultivate problem-solving and brainstorming abilities in students. Workshops and PhD schools provide students with hands-on experience and exposure to real-world challenges. Networking with experts from the industry and the academic field is also a major asset. These formats enable students to stay abreast of cutting-edge technologies and develop competencies needed for careers in the Industry of the Future. Consequently, the integration of such modern learning formats can be a game-changer for higher education institutions looking to prepare students for the latest developments in the industry.

Objectives of the Call for Proposals

The call is addressed to researchers from TUM and IMT or to researchers that want to team up with researchers of these institutions. (In the second case the GFA can help you find collaborators from these institutions. Please contact us beforehand.) It is obligatory to have minimum one founding member of the GFA (IMT or TUM) involved in your proposal. As it is one of our core missions to foster the French-German relations, it is very important to us that the project takes place on a French-German scale.

The GFA supports:

  • High quality events, such as:
    • Hackathons
    • PhD Schools
    • Scientific Workshops and scientific symposia
    • Other innovative event-like formats
  • Initiation of Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees or Doctoral Colleges,
  • Executive educational programs for professionals
  • Projects regarding education and life-long learning aspects for students, young graduates and companies, especially new and creative formats.

Please note: The production of new online courses (MOOCs) will not be supported in this CfP.

Expected Outcomes

Expected outcomes of the CfP “Education & Knowledge” include increased French-German and European collaboration in higher education through initiatives such as Erasmus Mundus and the French-German organization of scientific events. With this call the GFA wants to promote innovation in teaching and learning formats, including new approaches for digital campuses, digital exams, and hybrid formats.

We also expect the development and exchange of good practices in higher education. This could include sharing successful strategies for student engagement, enhancing diversity and inclusion, and improving academic outcomes in our French-German network and beyond.

Through the call informal learning formats beyond universities’ walls, such as workshops, hackathons, and PhD schools are supported. This would help foster collaboration and skill-sharing between students, young entrepreneurs, and industrial experts.

To ensure participants are equipped with interdisciplinary capabilities, career competencies, and technological skills, the call could promote the delivery of such capabilities and encourage knowledge exchange between graduate or PhD students and industry experts.

Overall, we expect our call for proposals to help strengthen the quality and relevance of higher education across French-German and European universities, while also preparing participants for success in their future careers. More generally, the GFA is also strongly interested in German-French collaborations.

Time frame

  • Launch of the call: Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023
  • Deadline for submission: Wednesday, May 31st, 2023, EOB
  • Evaluation Committee: Week 26, 2023 (exact date tbc)
  • Notification of the selected projects: Monday, July 10th, 2023
  • Kick-off of the project: September 2023 (the latest)

Please find the full CfP and the application template here!

We look forward to receiving your proposals and working together.

If you have any questions or need further clarification, please feel free to contact Olivia Pahl (olivia.pahl@imt.fr) or Diane Baumer (diane.baumer@tum.de).

[TALK30] Trusted Graph for explainable detection of cyberattacks – Pierre PARREND (EPITA / iCube, Unistra)

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On Wed, April 19th, 2023, 2pm CET, Pierre PARREND (Laboratoire de Recherche de l’EPITA / Laboratoire ICube – Unistra), will talk about “Trusted Graph for explainable detection of cyberattacks“. You are cordially invited to come or join the free live stream on youtube and LinkedIn! Please share the link https://talk.cybercni.fr/30 with your interested friends!

Trailer: https://youtu.be/eiRdUH8yMHk
LinkedIN Event: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7052340159396139008/
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1698222957276297/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud1SieWVq10?list=PLdftPKA9mTfaDJxqwexil2mPhUFIA9ITd
Stream redirect (for every edition): https://TALK.cyberCNI.fr/stream

Newsletter with invitations: Subscription on https://TALK.cyberCNI.fr

Help us spreading the news

The best talks are those with an interested diverse audience! Therefore, please use the following media to spread the news in your networks: 

Thank you!

Abstract

Machine Learning (ML) is now a key asset in security operations for the classification of malware or malicious web sites through combinations of network, system or software properties, anomaly detection by identification of deviating behaviours. Challenges for efficient and scalable use remain wide open, as the issue of training future professionals in a domain that requires high level of proficiency both in system and network technologies and in machine learning models and theory. Nonetheless, the technologies are sufficiently mature to be pervasive in security devices like supervision (Splunk), EDR/XDR (Thetris, DarkTrace) or SOAR (), as well as in security teams focusing in SOC or forensics.

However, while ML is a powerful tool for analyzing dominant behaviours and deviations thereof, it falls short in detecting weak signals, complex attacks like APTs, and more generally taking the relationships between messages, machines or network into account. Specific models have emerged to address these issues, which need to radically switch the analysis approach: the individual packets are no longer significant, their sequence is. Individual machines are not working stand alone, their interactions build the capability – and the threats – to the network. Security analysis therefore needs to leave the now common Euclidian, multi-dimensional ML models to face the complex interactions of machines and communications, nodes and their binding vertices, that is to say: the non-Euclidian domain of graph analytics.

In this talk, we present how the combination of attack graphs, graph theoretical metrics and graph learning enhance the well-mastered ML models for detection of attacks and address two critical phases for attack detection and mitigation: supervision and forensics. The graphs can take several forms: interaction graphs, considering IP or IP+Mac addresses as node definition, or scenario graphs, focusing on short-range time-windows to isolate related sessions. We illustrate their versatile capability through a wide range of cyberattacks from broadscale ransomware, scanning or denial of service attacks, to targeted attacks like spoofing, up to complex advanced persistence threat (APT) multi-step attacks.

The non-aggregative characteristics of graph models supports extended properties for explainability of attacks throughout the analytics lifecycle: data, model, output and interface. These approaches are evaluated both for information system network traces and for cyberphysical systems in industrial and medical environments.

Watch the trailer here.

Pierre PARREND

Pierre Parrend is HDR Professor at EPITA and head of Security & Systems team ar LRE – Laboratoire de Recherche de l’EPITA. As a member of the ICube laboratory of the University of Strasbourg, he leads a joint project between the CSTB team (Complex Systems and Translational Bio-Informatics) of ICube and the EPITA Research Laboratory (LRE) on the use of graphs for explainable detection of cyberattacks. He is particularly interested in attack detection in medical and industrial sensor systems, in particular in the context of the ANR Correau project – Resilience through the design and security of water networks – of which ICube is a partner, and of the ANR THIA-ArtIC on connected medical objects. Pierre is also responsible for the Security & System Team, and deputy director, of the LRE. In this context, he coordinates the contribution of EPITA’s regional sites in Strasbourg, Rennes, Lyon and Toulouse to the school’s partner research laboratories. Pierre was responsible for the BICS (Biostatistics, Informatics, and Complex Systems) research platform at the ICube laboratory, and responsible for the teaching department in computer science and mathematics at ECAM Strasbourg-Europe between 2012 and 2021. He is graduated with a Habilitation to Direct Research from the University of Strasbourg (2017) and a PhD in Computer Science from INSA Lyon (2008).

About Laboratoire de Recherche de l’EPITA / Laboratoire ICube – Unistra

EPITA is a private engineering school located in France, specialized in computer science and information technology. It was founded in 1984. EPITA offers a five-year program leading to the “Ingénieur EPITA” degree recognized by the Commission des Titres d’Ingénieurs. The school provides a curriculum focused on Computer Science and Computer Engineering

that covers various fields such as computer programming, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, software engineering, and more. 

The LRE, Laboratoire de Recherche de l’EPITA, is the research lab of EPITA. It entails five teams: Security and Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Image, Automata, and Digital Methods for Humanities, as well as three transversal axes: robotics, software performance, and machine learning applications.

Talk.cybercni.fr

The Cyber CNI Lecture Series is a free monthly event that typically takes place on the last Wednesday of the month from 2pm to 3h30pm CET.

The event consists of a 45-minute expert presentation followed by a 45-minute discussion.

The Cyber CNI Speaker series aims to raise awareness and understanding of cyber security issues among all audiences. It aims to enable an ongoing dialogue between experts from industry and academia and the general public (citizens, families, small and large businesses, public organizations, etc.). All of us are concerned.

The events are broadcast live on Youtube (https://talk.cybercni.fr/) and LinkedIn, allowing worldwide remote participation – including a tool to participate in the discussion.

You can add the event calendar via ICS, webcal, HTML.

How the digital transformation is changing our lives

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown all of us the benefits of information technology. It allows us to work at a distance, to live at a distance, and most importantly, to keep in touch at a distance – with younger and older people, those closest to us, and even make new contacts.

Our society relies more and more on information and operational technologies. Examples include water, energy, heat and cooling supply, communications, healthcare, production and processing of goods, transportation, national security, banking, research and education, and food production.

What all these areas have in common is that they make intensive use of networked distributed computer systems. These systems can be attacked in many ways. This is no longer just a problem for computer “pros” because computer systems are essential to all of us. The effects of “cyber-attacks” range from power outages to the collapse of the health care or banking sectors.

Program and registration: https://talk.cybercni.fr/

[#WisdomWednesday] Keynote “Strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty – the Fraunhofer perspective” from Alexander Malaer & Reimund Neugebauer (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft) at GFA conference: Smart World! Smart Europe? 2022

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You are cordially invited to watch the keynote by Alexander Malaer and Reimund Neugebauer from the Fraunhofer Geselschaft on Youtube. Follow this link!

The conference Smart World! Smart Europe? – Conference on European Digital Sovereignty took part in Munich on May 11-12, 2022.

The conference focussed on ideas that seek to advance Digital European Sovereignty. For this purpose we brought together relevant experts from society, academia and industry. Overall the conference seeks to raise awareness on the topic of European Digital Sovereignty, and generate concrete solutions on future education, research, governance.

On the first day, we showed ideas for solutions to advance European Digital Sovereignty. On the second day, we integrated politics’, academia’s and industry’s challenges with these ideas.

Moderation: Barbara Kostolnik (Former correspondent for German Public Radio ARD in France, Political Correspondent for Bayerischer Rundfunk in Berlin)

About Alexander Malaer

Alexander Malaer is Scientific Advisor in the Presidential Staff at Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

About the GFA Video Series and the #WisdomWednesday

Education is one of the core missions of the GFA. Therefore we have wonderful education projects in the field of industry 4.0, such as summer schools, hackathons and online courses that we organise together with leading universities in Europe. To present our education efforts to a bigger audience and share it with people all over the world, we created the GFA Video Series. Under the hashtag #WisdomWednesday we present interesting talks and keynotes every Wednesday on our website and in our social media. Stay tuned and check also our YouTube Channel.

About the German-French Academy for the Industry of the Future (GFA)

The German-French Academy for the Industry of the Future is a strategic vehicle to promote close collaboration between leading European research institutions and industrial companies. It was founded by the French Institut Mines-Télécom (IMT) and the German Technical University of Munich (TUM). Focused on joint research, education and innovation, the Academy’s mission is to master the challenges accompanying the increasing digitalization of industry processes. Read more…