The German Informatics Society (GI) spotlighted the SECUSO research on graphical authentication methods in their last newsletter. Several studies showed that people and especially kids can remember pictures better than complex passwords based on alphanumerical strings. Which makes authentication methods using pictures more secure than ht euse of weak passwords. In a study with 44 students on a German elementary school, we wanted to examine, weather the kids could remember pictures. The result was overwhelming: If the pictures are chosen which are close to the kid’s world of experience, those authentication methods are an excellent option.

Several professors are researching different aspects of E-Voting at KIT: Melanie Volkamer, Bernhard Beckert, Jörn Müller-Quade and Armin Grunwald. They bundled their competences to help authorities, who are responsible for the election, make an informed decision regarding which system is adequate for their type of elections. Since it is not always easy to understand the underlying cryptographic processes of E-Voting systems, professional advice is helpful to find suitable election systems and elections procedures.

The blog post is published on the digilog-bw.de website. First, it provides general information about phishing. If additional knowledge is desired, further links are provided to the SECUSO Website. Two students Tobias Länge and Philipp Matheis developed the entertaining (online phishing) game. It helps users to learn to distinguish between fraudulent and real(legitim) messages. The idea to learn about phishing with a game can catch the interest of new target groups as well. The game was developed as part of the digilog@bw project, which is financed by MWK (Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst).
Note: The blog post is written in German. 

The German journal for cybersecurity “<kes>” picked up on the research of Melanie Volkamer, head of the SECUSO research group, and Benjamin Bachmann, Director Cyber Security at EXXETA. The authors developed seven recommendations. The guidelines are based on scientific research and practical knowledge. In its biweekly “Spotlight”, the journal flags the recommendations for Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) which are designed to help implementing preventive security measures in companies.