IT security and safety

Information technology offers organizations numerous opportunities to develop new products, offer innovative services and optimize value chains. At the same time, our daily lives are permeated by IT devices and services that interact in complex ways and are increasingly threatened by attacks and failures. The security and safety of IT systems therefore form the basis for successful modernization in business and industry and for the functioning of the state and society.

IT security and safety technologies enable companies and public authorities to improve the reliability, trustworthiness and manipulation security of IT-based systems and also to guarantee the functional security of critical systems. For example, the Fraunhofer ICT Group develops tools with which programmers can test the security properties of software as early as the development phase. This allows errors and weaknesses to be identified early on and eliminated cost-effectively. In addition, modular safety analyses integrated into the development methodology allow efficient certification of systems. In the context of Industry 4.0, the Group works, among other things, on safeguarding industrial plants and processes. Because IT security and safety are particularly closely interlinked here, the ICT Group develops integrated solutions for safeguarding production processes and data. Fraunhofer develops concepts and solutions to make security mechanisms in hardware and software more intelligent and flexible so that the corresponding solutions are also easy to use. Models focused on IT security and safety relieve users because systems based on such models can automatically and securely react to new situations.

The Fraunhofer ICT Group masters techniques, methods and tools with which the security properties of systems can be efficiently specified, analyzed and validated. Fraunhofer researchers are able to test the attack and failure safety of systems theoretically and practically. Together with our partners, we improve the security and safety properties of devices, services, networks and processes. In addition, the network members develop innovative software and hardware solutions, make them available for licensing and support companies in implementing new developments.

• Usability and security
• Biometrics
• cyber security
• information security
• IT forensics
• Modelling and assessment of safety
• Security- and safety engineering
• Security for cloud computing
• Comprehensive security and safety for cyberphysical systems
• Security for software
• Security for and through Big Data

Security technologies and models form the basis for new developments and successful innovations in many industries and sectors, such as

• Enterprise software
• Production systems
• E-government
• E-health
• Big Data
• Software-defined products
• Internet of Things
• Industry 4.0
• Automotive
• Medical technology
• Electric mobility and energy management