According to the “Situation Report on IT Security” by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the number of targeted cyber attacks is increasing and a “new quality” of targeted cyber attacks is seen in Germany. This trend is not surprising given that information technology is increasingly determining our everyday life.

The Fraunhofer Research Institution for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC, Garching, Germany, is supporting companies, authorities and private individuals to protect themselves against cyber attacks. The key competences of the currently around 80 scientific and technical personnel lie in hardware-related security and the security of embedded systems, product and know-how protection, automotive security, the security of networks as well as security in Cloud and service-based computing. Among other things the AISEC is to be developed into a security center of national and European importance in the coming years.

In terms of plagiarism protection the Fraunhofer scientists see themselves as industry service providers, particularly for medium-sized companies. This applies above all for machines and other highly technical products which often have no special protection themselves thereby facilitating the work of the counterfeiters. According to a study by the German Engineering Federation (VDMA), sales losses in the sector due to plagiarism amounted to around eight billion Euros in 2011 – an increase of a 24 % compared with the last survey two years ago. Here technological solutions are mainly required, which both protect companies against economic espionage, but also protect products developed through high own investments against being copied. 

^{Protective film against external attacks: The film is firmly welded to the hardware.
Even if it is only slightly damaged it is impossible to read out sensitive data.
© Fraunhofer AISEC}

• Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Munich, Germany