Software engineering "Secure by Design"

Following the principle of security and privacy by design, the "Secure Software Engineering" workgroup thrives to support software developers in designing and implementing software systems that are known upfront to be secure with respect to certain attack vectors. Opposed to offensive approaches to software security, like ethical hacking, our group specializes on constructive techniques for software security. Our recipe to success is a unique novel combination of program synthesis and analysis techniques.

In our workgroup, we develop languages, mechanisms, processes and tools that allow software developers to clearly state security requirements and, if possible, synthesize partial implementations that achieve or help achieve these requirements. In cases where automated synthesis is impossible, and a programmer hence needs to implement security features by hand, we use automated program analyses to assist the programmer in deciding whether the implementation indeed fulfills the stated security requirements.

Va­can­cies in the work­group

Research assistant (f/m/d)

Research on security and factuality of foundation AI models | Publications at international venues | opportunity for a Ph.D. in the field of artificial intelligence (especially foundation models and knowledge graphs) | 4-year fixed-term contract | Pay grade 13 TV-L

To the job advert

Post-Doc employee (f/m/d)

Completed doctorate in the fields of software engineering, programming languages or IT security | Collaboration with doctoral students with regard to their doctorate | Further development of own research and teaching | Collaboration in the design and formulation of scientific funding applications | 3-year fixed-term contract | Pay grade 14 TV-L

To the job advert

Post-doc employee (f/m/d)

Collaboration with doctoral students with regard to their doctorate | Further development of own research and teaching as well as that of the department with a teaching obligation of usually 4 SWS | Collaboration in the design and formulation of scientific funding applications | 3-year fixed-term contract | Pay grade 14 TV-L

To the job advert

Research assistant (f/m/d)

Collaboration in research and teaching (usually 4 SWS) in the field of Secure Software Engineering | Collaboration in externally funded research projects of the department | Organisation of courses of the department | Pay group 13 TV-L | 3 years fixed-term contract

To the job advert

Research assistant (f/m/d)

Research in the ERC project "Self-optimizing static program analysis" (SOSA) | Collaboration in teaching (usually 4 SWS) | Dissemination and transfer of research results | Flexible working time model with up to three mobile working days per week | Very good knowledge of German or English | Master's degree in computer science, mathematics, o.s.

To the job advert

„Software has been the Achilles heel of IT security for years. The vast majority of attacks actually exploit quite trivial vulnerabilities in application software. Companies that produce software need to systematically rethink their approach and develop this software securely from the ground up.”

Prof. Dr. Eric Bodden,
Head of the "Secure Software Engineering" workgroup at the Heinz Nixdorf Institute at Paderborn University from Paderborn

News from the workgroup

06.12.2024

Re­search pro­ject to pro­tect against vul­n­er­­­ab­il­it­ies in freely ac­­cess­ible soft­ware pro­­duces two tools

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07.11.2024 - 07.11.2024

In­vit­a­tion to the lec­tures by Mr Aniruddhan Mur­ali & Mr Noble Saji Math­ews (Uni­ver­sity of Wa­ter­loo, Canada) on 07 Novem­ber

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23.10.2024

We con­grat­u­late Phil­ipp Domin­ik Schubert on his doc­tor­ate

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01.07.2024

Great team per­form­ance: Most In­flu­en­tial Pa­per Award for Prof Eric Bod­den

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10.05.2024

We con­grat­u­late Thor­sten Koch on his doc­tor­ate

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22.04.2024

Por­trait of a sci­ent­ist: Jo­nas Klauke

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11.04.2024

ERC Grant for Out­stand­ing Re­search Awar­ded to Pader­born Uni­ver­sity Re­search­er

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08.04.2024

Sci­ent­ists from our Se­cure Soft­ware En­gin­eer­ing group present at TACAS 2024

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03.04.2024

Sci­ent­ists from our "Se­cure Soft­ware En­gin­eer­ing" work­group at the IC­SE in Lis­bon

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26.03.2024

We con­grat­u­late An­dreas Dann on his doc­tor­ate

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23.01.2024

Se­cure Soft­ware En­gin­eer­ing spe­cial­ist group con­tin­ues to grow

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28.11.2023

Eric Bod­den is part of the DFG re­view board for soft­ware en­gin­eer­ing

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17.11.2023

Pader­born Uni­ver­sity sci­ent­ists are new acat­ech mem­bers

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10.10.2023

Fach­gruppe Se­cure Soft­ware En­gin­eer­ing wächst weit­er

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22.08.2023

markt & wirtschaft west­falen im In­ter­view mit Eric Bod­den

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More news

Team, pub­lic­a­tions, bach­el­or/mas­ter theses

Pub­lic­a­tions

Bach­el­or's and Mas­ter's theses

Re­search, teach­ing, pro­jects

Re­search

We research, develop and evaluate methods and tools to design secure software systems from the ground up. In many software development processes currently in use, the security of software systems is unfortunately still treated as secondary. As a result, security aspects are often considered too late.

Research topics

Teach­ing

We are intensively involved in the teaching and training of students and young academics such as doctoral candidates, post-doctoral candidates and junior professors with the aim of providing them with the skills they need to shape the future.

Courses

Pro­jects

We can provide companies with significant impetus for innovation and for maintaining their competitiveness. There are many approaches to this. They range from the placement of graduates through collaborative projects to contract developments, which we generally carry out via our spin-offs.

Project overview

„Even as a child, I was interested in everything that had to do with technology. During my computer science studies, I specialised in security, because software is used everywhere, but is also full of security vulnerabilities. For the past 20 years, water polo has given me a break from my desk.”

Martin Mory,
Scientists from the "Secure Software Engineering" workgroup at the Heinz Nixdorf Institute at Paderborn University from Paderborn

3 ques­tions for Eric Bod­den

A spell check­er for de­velopers? - Eric Bod­den in con­ver­sa­tion

Eric Bod­den ex­plains his de­part­ment in 1 minute.