Winner of the tender for the preparation of a feasibility study on encrypted computing has been determined.

Until November 22, 2021, the Cyber Agency invited submissions for the preparation of an overview and feasibility study on encrypted computing. Now the winner has been determined: The contractor is the Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA), subcontractor is the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The project manager at CISPA is Dr. Nico Döttling, the responsible person at KIT is Prof. Jörn Müller-Quade.

"We are pleased that the first project of the Cyber Agency can be assigned to Dr. Nico Döttling and Prof. Jörn Müller-Quade. We are very honored to be able to win two proven experts in the field with our research question," says Dr. Christian Hummert, Research Director of the Cyber Agency.
Regarding the central research question, Michael John, who is responsible for the area of "Encrypted Computing" at the Cyber Agency, says: "The project aims to identify potential "Encrypted Computing" applications that can be used in the area of internal and external security in the future. The central aim is to record the security properties and to achieve a comparison of the performance of these procedures depending on their application scenarios".
The duration of the project is nine months. The budget is in the range of a sub-threshold award. The result is to be an overview and feasibility study that will include ontology and models as well as procedures, use cases and benchmarking.

This result is the prelude to the research activities of the Cyber Agency in the field of "Encrypted Computing".
It is intended to initiate a publicly tendered programme with a volume of approximately eight million euros in the course of the second half of 2022. The aim of this larger programme is to research prototype applications for internal and external security using encrypted computing technology.

Background Encrypted Computing

Secure encryption of data is a requirement in almost all areas of information processing. This applies both to data traffic in the everyday life of every individual and to particularly security-sensitive areas such as the police, intelligence services or the military. Today's cryptographic methods make it possible to keep data secret only during its transmission and storage. It is currently not possible to maintain the secrecy of data during processing. Therefore, the central question of the Cyber Agency is "Which methods allow to analyse and process sensitive and/or security-relevant data in a practicable way without having to decrypt them?"

Background Cyber Agency

The Agency for Innovation in Cybersecurity, or Cyber Agency, was founded in the summer of 2020 in the legal form of a limited liability company. The sole shareholder is the Federal Republic of Germany, jointly represented by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry of Defence. It sees itself as a driving force for an open culture of innovation and venture as well as for a vibrant ecosystem to promote cybersecurity technologies. The Cyber Agency aims to drive research as well as breakthrough innovations in cybersecurity and related key technologies in the field of homeland and external security. With this mission, it contributes to Germany's technological sovereignty in the cyber and information space. The Cyber Agency does not conduct research itself. Currently, about 27 employees work at the Cyber Agency, with an expansion target of about 100 employees. Its headquarters are in Halle (Saale).