We are proud to have wetter.com in Konstanz. According to Stiftung Warentest, an independent organisation for testing of goods and services for consumers, wetter.com has the best weather forecast. „Best in terms of temperature and precipitation“ probably means how accurate the prediction is. If I want to go out, I want to know if it […]
Visit to Avira in Tettnang
We do not have a lot of companies specialising in IT security in the Lake Constance area, so we went on a field trip to Tettnang on the other side of the lake to visit one of the larger companies, a bit more than an hour to drive. Around 30 students from the bachelor/master security […]
Mobile Malware
We had two experts from Avira presenting on mobile malware this week. Close to 80 students and staff attended a FirmenForum presentation given by Alexander Vukcevic, Director Virus Labs, and Marcus König, Manager Advanced Research and Technologies. Smartphone operating systems are attractive targets for cyber criminals. Not all mobile operating systems are equal, and the […]
CTF team of HTWG participates in hack.lu CTF 2015
Almost thirty computer science students from HTWG Konstanz formed a team to participate in the hack.lu CTF competition. The goal of this competition in applied IT security was to solve tasks related to web application security, IT forensics, reverse engineering, cryptography etc. The team from HTWG included students from my classes in IT-Security (Master) and […]
Regional IT security challenges
Integrated in our bachelor study programmes is a period where students are sent out into the world to apply what they have learned so far, experience a real workplace, and come back with new skills and renewed motivation for the remainder of their studies. Professors visit the students to ensure they are doing well and […]
Tower of Hanoi for information systems students
I teach Introduction to Programming to students in our „WIN“ information systems bachelor study programme. When introducing the principle of recursion, it seems to be inevitable to talk about the Tower of Hanoi. A number of disks has to be moved from one of three rods to another. Because you can only move one disk […]
HTWG Software Security class participates in 10KStudents initiative
The goal of the 10KStudents challenge is to improve cyber security by teaching 10,000 university students the basic concepts of software vulnerabilities and secure programming. It has its roots in the (now completed) SysSec Network of Excellence of which I was an associate member. The challenge will teach students that security is inherent to all […]
CTF team of HTWG participates in iCTF2014-2015
The yearly iCTF competition of the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) counts as one of the toughest in the field of applied IT security. Some even call it an unofficial CTF world championship. The team assembled at HTWG Konstanz finished best among the Universities of Applied Sciences in Baden-Württemberg earlier this month. Goal of […]
More research-based learning for software security at HTWG
One of my proposals was selected to receive support from HTWG Konstanz in the „Research-Based Learning“ project. As an enhancement to my lecture Software Security we will prepare for and take part in two Capture the flag (CTF) competitions. Preparation will be supported by a student assistant. The first competition will be offense/defense style, the […]
Taught Introduction to Programming the first time, ca. 47% to 74% passed. Is that good?
This semester, I taught Introduction to Programming for students in the WIN (information systems) study programme. I had 62 students signed up for the exam today, and only 29 of them passed. Should I be worried? Based on feedback from students who had taken the class in previous years, I had introduced some changes to […]