UROP Project

Secure collaboration within the Industrial Internet of Things

With the advances in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), industry and logistics want to improve process efficiency, e.g., with interconnected intelligent production lines and supply chain tracking. However, companies have reservations against industrial collaboration due to a lack of control over (sensitive) information. We design and realize security and privacy mechanisms that enable stakeholders to benefit from the IIoT while mitigating potential risks of collaborating with business partners. A potential project could evolve around company benchmarking. In particular, how to privacy-preservingly compare different datasets featuring multiple companies and/or how to illustrate their performance in a web browser. The exact project topic, methods, and outcome will be defined at a later date, depending on our research progress and/or your interests and skills. Our full research expertise and general information on our research environment are available at https://www.comsys.rwth-aachen.de/research/security-and-privacy/ Jan Pennekamp, M.Sc. Jan.pennekamp@comsys.rwth-aachen.de Jan Pennekamp, M.Sc. Jan.pennekamp@comsys.rwth-aachen.de

Task

What we offer: This is a great opportunity for you to actively engage in and contribute to original research in the area of security and privacy in industrial contexts, a field that is rapidly evolving at the moment. RWTH Aachen University offers an excellent, interdisciplinary research environment, which stimulates cooperation between research groups inside and outside the department of computer science. In particular, this project is part of the German Clusters of Excellence (EXC) for internationally competitive research. Therefore, you can experience research collaborations (mostly) with mechanical engineers at first hand. Our group is home of a crowd of enthusiastic Bachelor, Master, and PhD students and offers an attractive work environment. For the project, we will provide you with a workplace in one of our project rooms and all other necessary infrastructure. You will interact closely with your supervisor as well as other researchers on a daily basis.

Requirements

What we expect: Your project will describe a small, independent block of research that you are responsible for, and which you will be able to undertake independently with the help of your supervisor. Research in our group typically consists of the design, implementation, and evaluation of communication systems. For this topic, you should be interested in computer networking, security, and privacy and have solid programming skills, preferably in Python, Java, and/or C/C++. You should also have basic Linux skills. Knowledge on the concepts of secure communication protocols (such as TLS), the (Industrial) Internet of Things, or privacy-sensitive approaches is a plus but not mandatory. Web technologies, such as HTML, CSS, and others, are beneficial for the task of illustrating the performance in a web browser. You should have curiosity, an independent working method, and the willingness to bring in and discuss your own ideas and solutions. If you feel interested in this opportunity, we welcome you to apply!