Research Group
Machine Learning
and Security
View from our building over Berlin.

Welcome and Overview

Our research group conducts fundamental research at the intersection of computer security and machine learning. On the one end, we are interested in developing intelligent systems that can learn to protect computers from attacks and identify security problems automatically. On the other end, we explore the security and privacy of machine learning by developing novel attacks and defenses.

We are part of the new Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data (BIFOLD) at Technische Universität Berlin. Previously, we have been working at Technische Universität Braunschweig and the University of Göttingen.

News and Updates

March 13, 2024 — We visit our colleagues from CODE 🪖. Konrad will give an invited talk as part of the Colloquium Series of the Research Institute CODE at University of the Bundeswehr Munich.

February 8, 2024 — We are hiring! 🧑‍💻 We have two open PhD student positions in our research group. Further details are available here. The deadline for application is Match 8, 2024.

January 2, 2024 — We happily welcome our new postdoc Dr. Anne Josiane Kouam. We look forward to tackling the challenges of security, fraud, and data-driven defenses with you.

December 4, 2023 — We are presenting two papers at ACSAC in Austin, 🇺🇸. Tom is introducing our work on patch-based vulnerability discovery and Erwin speaks about the detection of image-scaling attacks.

See all news and updates of the research group.

Recent publications

Dancer in the Dark: Synthesizing and Evaluating Polyglots for Blind Cross-Site Scripting.
Robin Kirchner, Jonas Möller, Marius Musch, David Klein, Konrad Rieck and Martin Johns.
Proc. of the 33rd USENIX Security Symposium, 2024. (to appear)

PDF

Cross-Language Differential Testing of JSON Parsers.
Jonas Möller, Felix Weißberg, Lukas Pirch, Thorsten Eisenhofer and Konrad Rieck.
Proc. of the 19th ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), 2024. (to appear)

On the Role of Pre-trained Embeddings in Binary Code Analysis.
Alwin Maier, Felix Weißberg and Konrad Rieck.
Proc. of the 19th ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), 2024. (to appear)

I still know it's you! On Challenges in Anonymizing Source Code.
Micha Horlboge, Erwin Quiring, Roland Meyer and Konrad Rieck.
Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETS), 2024, (3), 2024. (to appear)

PDF Code

See all publications of the research group.

Current projects

AIGENCY — Opportunities and Risks of Generative AI in Security

The project aims to systematically investigate the opportunities and risks of generative artificial intelligence in computer security. It explores generative models as a new tool as well as a new threat. The project is joint work with Fraunhofer AISEC, CISPA, FU Berlin, and Aleph Alpha.

BMBF 2023 – 2026

MALFOY — Machine Learning for Offensive Computer Security

The ERC Consolidator Grant MALFOY explores the application of machine learning in offensive computer security. It is an effort to understand how learning algorithms can be used by attackers and how this threat can be effectively mitigated.

ERC 2023 – 2028 Website

ALISON — Attacks against Machine Learning in Structured Domains

The goal of this project is to investigate the security of learning algorithms in structured domains. That is, the project develops a better understanding of attacks and defenses that operate in the problem space of learning algorithms rather than the feature space.

DFG 2023 – 2026

See all projects of the research group.

Job Applications

We are generally looking for motivated and skilled PhD students and postdocs to join our group—even if we currently do not announce open positions. If you are passionate about research and interested in combining machine learning and computer security, contact us directly at jobs@mlsec.org.

Before writing an unsolicited email, take some time to write a good cover letter. In this letter, you should describe why you are a good fit for our group and what research you enjoy doing. Include the result of (0x62df**215)%0xf0e5 in the subject line of your email.

Contact

Technische Universität Berlin
Machine Learning and Security, TEL 8-2
Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7
10587 Berlin, Germany

Office: office@mlsec.tu-berlin.de
Responsibility under the German Press Law §55 Sect. 2 RStV:
Prof. Dr. Konrad Rieck