PIDS - Passau Institute of Digital Security

The Passau Institute of Digital Security (PIDS) was established in February 2020 and is an institute of the University of Passau. It is the successor of the Institute for IT Security and Security Law (ISL) and like its predecessor, it is interdisciplinary and deals with technical, economic and legal aspects of IT security. Scientists from all faculties of the university work together in PIDS on new and innovative solutions for cyber security.

The PIDS is active in research, teaching and consulting. Our portfolio includes:

Basic research and consulting on IT security
Development of technical principles and innovative procedures for IT security and security testing
Development of security strategies and secure business processes
Legal support in the development of security strategies and business processes
Consulting, training and development projects in the field of IT security
Policy advice on IT security
Courses, training and conferences on IT security

News

PIDS Perspectives: Functional Change of the IT Security Law

The PIDS Perspectives event on "Functional Change of the IT Security Law" took place on 25 March 2021. The recording (in German) is available on the German web page.

PIDS Perspectives: Digital Sovereignty - Living with Dependency?

The second event in the "PIDS Perspectives" series, dealing with "Digital Sovereignty" took place online on Dec. 11, 2020. The recording of the event (held in German) is now available on our German web site.

Distributed Key Management in Microgrids

Talk by Prof. Christos Xenakis, University of Piraeus, on 20 October 2020

Abstract

Security for smart industrial systems is prominent due to the proliferation of cyber threats threatening national critical infrastructures. Smart grid comes with intelligent applications that can utilize the bidirectional communication network among its entities.

Microgrids are small-scale smart grids that enable Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications as they can operate with some degree of independence from the main grid. In addition to protecting critical microgrid applications, an underlying key management scheme is needed to enable secure M2M message transmission and authentication. Existing key management schemes are not adequate due to microgrid special features and requirements. We propose the Micro sElf-orgaNiSed mAnagement (MENSA), which is the first hybrid key management and authentication scheme that combines Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Web-of-Trust concepts in micro-grids. Our experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of MENSA in terms of scalability and swiftness.

A video of the talk is available on Vimeo.

YouTube Channel

We have launched a YouTube channel to inform about PIDS activities.

PIDS Perspectives: A Multi-disciplinary Discourse on Proximity Tracing

On 23 July 2020, the first edition of the newly created event series "PIDS Perspectives" on proximity tracing took place online. You can now watch the recordings of the event: Part 1 (Opening Session), Part 2 (Interdisciplinary Session), Part 3 (Round Table Discussion)