© Catharina Frank

Opportunities and risks lie side by side in the digital world. Whoever is online, is attackable. The more complex the system, the more vulnerable it becomes. Cybersecurity research aims at minimizing the risks so that we can make more of the opportunities. For this reason, security experts from Fraunhofer SIT and Fraunhofer IGD and researchers from the Technische Universität Darmstadt and the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences jointly work on solutions for more digital security under the umbrella of the center for applied cybersecurity research, ATHENE.

Federal Minister of Research, Anja Karliczek, was impressed by the presentation of the research center: "The security of data networks concerns the daily lives of everybody. Central infrastructures for power grids, transport, hospitals and public administration depend on secure data networks. We need to strengthen our technological sovereignty – for the sake of the people in our country and our economy. It is to this end, that the Federal Government supports the national research center ATHENE."

"We are very proud that Europe’s biggest research center for applied cybersecurity has been created in Darmstadt”, says Hessian Minister of Science Angela Dorn. „As a state government, we have identified the question of security in the digital world as a central challenge for the future early on. For this reason, we provided strong support for the creation of the center as early as 2008 in the context of the Hessian development program LOEWE. With this, we prepared the ground for the Federal Government’s decision to support the Darmstadt center. This also benefits the participating universities and helps to strengthen the reputation of Hesse as a scientific hotspot. For, unlike the other, purely non-university cybersecurity centers, we managed to include the universities to a high degree. For this I want to thank both the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the universities."

"Cybersecurity is one of the cornerstones of digitalization. Without it the digital transformation of economy and society cannot be successful,” says Prof. Reimund Neugebauer, president of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. “In the research center ATHENE we, the Technische Universität Darmstadt and Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences will jointly research and develop effective solutions that will contribute to realizing the full potential of digitalization for the benefit of all."