The German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst - DAAD) conducted an interview with Prof. Dr. Melanie Volkamer on the topic of phishing. Despite numerous awareness measures, it is not surprising that phishing remains a major problem. The reasons for this are that many measures offer only general advice, and common red flags, such as poor grammar or spelling, are becoming less reliable. It is therefore essential to always check web addresses before clicking on them. Tools like Torpedo can help with this. Implementing technical measures such as DMARC is also recommended to protect users from spoofing, for example.

The program for the 41st Symposium of the Verein Angewandte Informatik (AIK) on November 6, 2026 is now online. In addition to two short presentations by Dr. Benjamin Berens (SECUSO) and Dr. Julia Seitz Sänger (h-lab) featuring input from their respective research groups, there will be five further presentations by Prof. Dr. Petra Nieken (IBU, KIT), Prof. Dr. Albrecht Schmidt (LMU Munich), Prof. Dr. Barbara Bruno (IAR, KIT), Dr. Michaela Kauer-Franz (CEO of Custom Medical), and Prof. Dr. Steffen Staab (University of Stuttgart). This year’s symposium is organized by the SECUSO research group and the “human-centered systems lab (h-lab)” research group. The title of the symposium is “Menschenzentrierte Informatikforschung" (Human-Centered Computer Science Research). Registration is now open via the website.

The magazine “Neuland,” published by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, reports on the INSPECTION project in its 2025 issue. The project investigated ways to detect website hacking and identify points of intrusion. The SECUSO research group notified affected website operators about the hacking. With this, the project examined how to increase the effectiveness of vulnerability notifications. The project consortium consisted of mindUp Web & Intelligence GmbH, BDO Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft AG, and the SECUSO research group. Web hosting providers, industry and security associations, and international stakeholders also participated in the project as associated partners. Anne Hennig and Peter Mayer from the SECUSO research group oversaw the project.

We have released a new update for the Thunderbird and Firefox add-on TORPEDO. As part of this release, we have modernized the code and updated it to current libraries. In addition to a revised tutorial, the tooltip can now be configured in the options. Individual tooltip information can be shown or hidden as needed. Furthermore, links with trusted domains from user-defined lists are now treated the same color-wise as domains from the developer list – both are displayed with a green tooltip border. The update is available immediately in the official Firefox and Thunderbird add-on stores. Existing installations will be updated automatically. When updating, you may be asked for permissions again. For more details on the required permissions, please read the "Permissions" section on the TORPEDO website.