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08/11/2023 11:18

CISPA-TL;DR Podcast episode 23: Security of e-mail communication with Dr. Ben Stock

Felix Koltermann Unternehmenskommunikation
CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security

    A new episode of the CISPA-TL;DR Podcast is online! Episode 23 relates to the prestigious USENIX Security 2023 conference in Anaheim, California, which was very successful for CISPA. CISPA-Faculty Dr. Ben Stock has co-authored a paper on E-Mail Security that was presented there, along with 29 other papers with CISPA involvement. In this episode of TL;DR, he tells us all about how secure E-Mails really are, why you should always double check who the sender of a suspicious E-Mail really is and what the future might hold in store for the E-Mail standard.

    For those doing world-class research in information security, like CISPA faculty Dr. Ben Stock, attending certain scientific conferences, such as USENIX Security, is a must. The conference is held annually in the U.S. during the second week of August. In the CISPA-TL;DR Podcast he explains that in science language these conferences are referred to as “tier1”. Ben explains the importance of USENIX Security for his field of research as follows: “These big conferences have been around for 30+ years, IEEE security for even 40 years and they have been established and established themselves as the premier venue where essentially every researcher that wants to know what is the latest and greatest research in information security will go to.” The scientific prestige of these conferences’ stems from the strict selection criteria applied in the selection process, also known as peer review process.

    The CISPA faculty has already presented several papers at USENIX-Security and convinced the juries with his work. This year he is presenting the paper "Extended Hell(o): A Comprehensive Large-Scale Study on Email Confidentiality and Integrity Mechanisms in the Wild" as a co-author together with his former master student Birk Blechschmidt. In a nutshell, it's about the security of e-mail communication. But what makes the topic so important? “Email security is something that kind of concerns everybody all the time without the vast majority of people noticing this”, he says in the podcast. Asked how e-Mail-Provider perform in this field, his answer is very clear: „They could do much better“. In the podcast Ben gives a full explanation on what exactly could be done better. One advice is very important to him: „You cannot use email to communicate in a confidential manner unless you have this end-to-end-encryption”.

    Birk, the paper's main author, is one of Ben's former master's students. When asked about the merits of a cybersecurity degree program such as the one offered by CISPA and Saarland University, he responds: “One of the key selling points of this study program is that you start with information security from day one. So, while you do get a fundamental introduction into computer science as all the others students of IT at Saarland University, you really look from day one into topics of cryptography, network security and among other things also email security. This specialization allows you to have three years where you dive deep into that topic.” The example of Ben's former Master's student Birk Blechschmidt shows that with a good Master's thesis you can already present at world-class conferences.

    TL;DR, short for "To Long Didnt' Read," is the CISPA podcast, with "Women in Cybersecurity" as a Special Edition. We've been on the air with it since 2022 on all major podcast platforms. Each month, we talk to CISPA researchers about their work on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, and try to ask them the exact questions that listeners are asking themselves. Our goal is to explain complex topics in simple language. Since people from 43 nations work at CISPA, the conversations are conducted sometimes in German, sometimes in English.


    More information:

    https://cispa.de/en/tldr-stock


    Images

    The guest on this TL;DR episode is CISPA-Faculty Dr. Ben Stock
    The guest on this TL;DR episode is CISPA-Faculty Dr. Ben Stock


    Criteria of this press release:
    Journalists
    Information technology
    transregional, national
    Research results, Transfer of Science or Research
    English


     

    The guest on this TL;DR episode is CISPA-Faculty Dr. Ben Stock


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