Johanna Ullrich
Research group:
Critical infrastructures are more vital than ever for life in our technology-oriented societies. At the same time, the threat landscape aiming to harm these infrastructures increases at a high pace. Our scientific work centers around the security and resilience of critical infrastructures with a particular focus on the Internet as a global communication infrastructure and the power grid as the primary energy source of the future.
A significant obstacle is mapping. Consequently, we use diverse methods to gain insight into these large-scale human-made infrastructures, e.g., through Internet measurements, Open Source Intelligence, or interviews, to infer their current state. Based on the insights we collect, we assess their mutual dependencies and vulnerabilities, often in collaboration with experts from other disciplines, and propose countermeasures to maintain their security and resilience even in crises.
Short bio:
Johanna Ullrich is a Professor of Security at IT:U. Based on her interdisciplinary background, she works on security at the intersection of information technology and classical engineering. Her research has guided Internet standardization at the Internet Engineering Task Force, improved widely used operating systems to better protect users’ privacy, introduced a previously unknown attack against the power grid, and shaped the understanding of critical infrastructures in crises.
Johanna earned her PhD with the highest distinction (promotio sub auspiciis praesidentis, awarded by the Austrian President) at the Vienna University of Technology (Technische Universität Wien). In collaboration with industry, she founded the independent research group on Network and Critical Infrastructure Security at SBA Research, a Competence Center for Excellent Technologies (COMET) on information security, and the Austrian Internet Measurement Hub, a platform for large-scale Internet measurements. Before joining IT:U, she was a Professor of Communication Technologies at the University of Vienna. Johanna is deeply committed to knowledge transfer. Beyond teaching, she has participated in a digital competencies workshop for the national parliament and appeared in one of the most successful Austrian TV documentaries.
