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CAST Award IT Security 2007

CAST Award IT Security 2007 conferred

On 15 November 2007, for the seventh time, CAST e.V. conferred the CAST Award for IT Security on extraordinary young talent in IT Security. Innovative Ideas and new concepts dealing with the subject "Security in Information Technology" were the main focus in the presentations at the awards ceremony for the CAST Award IT Security 2007 at Fraunhofer IGD in Darmstadt.

Those eligible were persons who submitted work produced for an institution in Europe or a member of CAST e.V. between January 2006 and August 2007. Submitted work should present innovative ideas, concepts and implementation in the field of IT Security. In this year, prize money in the amount of 13,000 euros were awarded in the categories Master and Diploma Theses, Bachelor Theses, and IT Specialists.

As of 31/08/2007, a total of 46 papers were submitted to CAST e.V. This year's scientific committee assessed the quality of the work in 145 evaluations. The authors of the 12 best papers were invited to Darmstadt to present their results to the members of CAST e.V. and the interested public at the Fraunhofer IGD. A 20 minute presentation and following question session gave the audience the opportunity to judge the quality of the work. Following the presentations, the winners were voted on by the present CAST e.V. members.

The candidates for the CAST Award 2007

In the category "Master and Diploma Theses," Mr. Kirchner from the TU Dresden won first place with his paper on falsifiability of evidence in multimedia forensics. Mr. Kirchner's work has contributed significantly to the authenticity of digital photos in court.

Second place was awarded to Mr. Graffi from the TU Darmstadt. In his work, "A Security Framework for Organic Mesh Networks," he invented security mechanisms for a completely new type of wireless network that allow the range of mobile phone base stations to be extended in a secure manner.

Third place was awarded to Mr. Koschuch from TU Graz. The topic of his paper, "Hardware/Software Co-Design of Public-Key Cryptography for SSL Protocol Execution in Embedded Systems."

In the category "Bachelor theses," Mr. Rossow from the FH Gelsenkirchen won first place for his research on Anti-Spam Mechanisms. Spam, unwanted advertising e-mails, are still a serious aggravation and represent a significant security risk. Mr. Rossow clearly showed how the intelligent use of blacklists can confront these dangers.

In this category, Mr. Lentzen was awarded second place for his work, "Vorschlag und Definition eines neuen Sachziels - Löschbarkeit und Entwicklung sicherer Verfahren zur Implementierung," which dealt with ability to permanently delete data. Mr. Lentzen was able to show that saving data is becoming faster and cheaper, while deleting data permanently is becoming more difficult. In line with data protection, he presented a trend-setting solution.

Third place in this category, "Bachelor Theses," was awarded to Mr. Salim (FernUniversität Hagen). Mr. Salim analyzed the security of a procedure used to encrypt mobile telephony.

In the category "IT Specialists," Mr. Kasper was awarded 1,000 euros prize money for his work on Monitoring with Nagios.

The day finished off with a buffet, after all the votes were counted and the awards presented.

The Winners

An overview of the event's program can be found on the event's homepage.

Again in 2008, the CAST Award will be awarded. The submission deadline is 31 July 2008. Details about the Award 2008 will be released in the near future.

Matthias Kirchner, TU Dresden (Winner in the Category Master and Diploma Theses)

Christian Rossow, FH Gelsenkirchen (Winner in the Category Bachelor Theses)

Martin Kasper, TU Darmstadt (Winner in the Category IT Specalists)

The CAST Winners 2007

Impressions of the day

Sponsor Dr. Horst Görtz

The annual awarding of the CAST Award has been supported by Dr. Görtz since 2005.

This year, the honorary member of CAST e.V. donated the prizes for Category 1: Master and Diploma Theses (Universities, FHs and BA).

Sponsor Accenture

We are pleased that the prize money for the second category was donated by Accenture in 2007!

Accenture is a world-wide Management, Technology and Outsourcing provider. With the goal of implementing innovations, the company helps its customers cooperatively to improve their performance. Comprehensive knowledge of their branch, business process know-how an international team and a high level of realization competence have put Accenture in a position to provide the right employees, skills and technologies in order to improve the performance of its customers.

Accenture realizes innovated and future-oriented IT Security projects - from the strategy to the analysis, from design and implementation to introduction in business. The consultants of Accenture Security Practice analyze risks and perform IT Security audits, design emergency strategies and develop security architectures. Our security experts are specialized in the files of Security, Trust, Privacy and Compliance. Accenture develops innovative, reliable security solutions that can be integrated in the core business processes and infrastructures. Together with the customer, goals are formulated and Accenture is responsible for making sure they are achieved.

With the involvement as a sponsor for the award for excellent student theses, Accenture hopes to actively support innovative ideas in the field of IT Security and their implementation. By specifically supporting young IT experts, a contribution is made to fulfill the increasing importance of IT Security in the areas of business and public life, and to strengthen the innovation in Germany in the long-term.

Sponsor Dr. Wolfgang Böhmer, IT Security Consulting and Member of the CAST Board of Directors

The prizes for category 3 of the CAST Award were donated this year by Dr. Böhmer.