Successfully achieving more as partners.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is a supreme federal authority of the Federal Republic of Germany. It promotes the research and development of security solutions at all IT system levels. The aim is to create innovative building blocks and complete solutions for secure and comprehensible IT systems, from development to deployment and application of these systems. As part of the Federal Government's research framework program on IT security “Self-determined and secure in the digital world 2015-2020”, the BMBF has published a guideline for funding research projects on the topic of “Security at all IT system layers”. The guideline is intended to help increase the security of IT systems in Germany and Europe and strengthen technological sovereignty. The BMBF promotes projects that deal with the security of IT systems by providing financial support and promoting cooperation between research institutions and companies.

The SI-Lab is the central scientific facility of Paderborn University in the SICP - Software Innovation Campus Paderborn. The SICP is a cooperation between technology companies in the region and Paderborn University. More than 30 university working groups from various disciplines are involved in the SI-Lab. The KoTeBi project is located in the SI-Lab in the Digital Security competence area and benefits from access to the extensive expertise and network of the working groups involved. The SICP is the coordinator of the project and thus leads the research and development of the project.

Hackmanit GmbH was founded in 2014 by IT security experts from the Ruhr University Bochum. They have international publications in the field of TLS security, web services, single sign-on and cross-site scripting. The company's focus is defined by penetration tests, practical training and customized threat analyses. Thanks to their up-to-date research know-how, Hackmanit employees are able to provide state-of-the-art recommendations in these areas and support customers on research-related topics. In the KoTeBi project, Hackmanit is driving development forward and providing support with expertise in the field of TLS.

As a business network, InnoZent OWL has been an established and networked player for over 20 years and maintains very good contacts with the regional industry networks, the two chambers of industry and commerce and the OWL Chamber of Crafts. As a technology transfer partner, the network accompanies and supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in identifying new technologies, evaluating them in their own application context and introducing them in line with requirements. Around 300 corporate partners and over 40 R&D institutions are involved in the project-oriented InnoZent OWL network throughout Germany, and there are also a number of international contacts. The network is a member of the Cluster Platform Germany, the cluster policy excellence measure of the Federal Ministry of Economics, in which around ninety of the most efficient cluster management organizations in Germany are organized. As part of KoTeBi, InnoZent OWL takes on the integration of SMEs from selected application domains to accompany research.

The Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) is one of the leading research institutions in Germany specializing in IT security, among other things. The Chair of Network and Data Security (NDS) at the Faculty of Computer Science conducts research and development in the fields of cryptography, cryptographic protocols, Internet and XML security. The aim is to comprehensively investigate the numerous cryptographic techniques and standards used in these areas. One focus of research here is on protocols used in practice, such as the Internet standards TLS, SSH and IPSec. Since 2014, the chair has also focused on developing the TLS-Attacker framework, which was designed for the evaluation of TLS implementations. Building on this, further frameworks have been developed which, for example, use automated scans to evaluate the relevance of attacks in the TLS ecosystem. The TLS Attacker framework is being used and further developed as part of the KoTeBi project.

Utimaco is a leading global provider of high-security technologies for cybersecurity and compliance solutions and services with headquarters in Aachen, Germany and Campbell (CA), USA. Utimaco develops and produces on-premise and cloud-based hardware security modules, solutions for key management, data protection and identity management as well as data intelligence solutions for regulated critical infrastructures and public warning systems. Utimaco holds a leading market position in its core areas.

More than 500 employees take responsibility for customers and citizens worldwide by developing innovative security solutions and services that protect their data, identities and networks. Partners and customers from a wide range of industries value the reliability and long-term investment security of Utimaco security solutions.

The Technology Innovation Institute (TII) is a leading global research center based in Abu Dhabi. It is dedicated to expanding the frontiers of knowledge and developing new technologies. TII's mission is to advance applied research in various fields of science and technology. The research areas are diverse and include research into the security of communication and data transmission as well as the development of secure and reliable systems.