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Distinguished award for Professor Sebastian Faust

Cryptography expert receives the Copernicus Award

2020/04/21 von

Their many years of joint cutting-edge research in the field of cryptography and IT security is honoured with a prestigious award: Sebastian Faust, Professor of Computer Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt, and Professor Dr. Stefan Dziembowski (University of Warsaw) will each receive half of the Copernicus Award 2020 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Fundacja na rzecz Nauki Polskiej (FNP, Foundation for Polish Science), which is endowed with 200,000 euros.

Professor Sebastian Faust.

How can covert sophisticated attacks on chip cards and smartphones be averted? What solutions are available to significantly enhance the efficiency of blockchain-based digital payment processing, for instance using virtual cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin? The two researchers Faust and Dziembowski are working on the principles and innovative applications of IT security technologies. With their publications they repeatedly attract worldwide attention and earn awards.

Faust has been Professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt since 2017 and heads the Applied Cryptography Group. His research projects on “Secure and Scalable Blockchain Technologies” are embedded in the Collaborative Research Centre “Crossing – Cryptography-Based Security Solutions: Enabling Trust in New and Next Generation Computing Environments”, funded by the German Research Foundation at the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Blockchains in real-time

The “Prochain” start-up project initiated by Faust has been financially supported by the new “StartUpSecure” funding programme of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research since July 2019 and is on its way to establishing its own company. Faust and his team have developed an IT security product for better use of blockchain technologies that is suitable for large industries such as energy and finance. The solution makes it possible to transfer even the smallest amounts of money online almost in real time and more cost-effectively, while at the same time offering better privacy protection for transactions in blockchain networks.