Thorsten Eisenhofer
Faculty · CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security
I'm a tenure-track faculty member at CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Saarbrücken, Germany. Before joining CISPA, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Machine Learning and Security group at BIFOLD & TU Berlin working with Konrad Rieck. I completed my PhD at Ruhr University Bochum, advised by Thorsten Holz and as part of the Cluster of Excellence CASA. My dissertation was recognized by the faculty for outstanding achievements.
My research focuses on machine learning and computer security. I'm interested in all kinds of attacks on learning models and defenses to improve their robustness. This often means looking beyond the model itself and examining the entire computational pipeline, including pre-processing, post-processing, and the underlying hardware and software stack. I'm also interested in how learning-based approaches, including modern LLM and agent systems, can support core security tasks such as vulnerability analysis, fuzzing, and malware classification.
Along the way, I interned with the SecLab at UC Santa Barbara, working with Giovanni Vigna and Christopher Kruegel and joining Shellphish at the DEF CON CTF finals in Las Vegas. I have also been a visiting researcher at the Cleverhans Lab at the Vector Institute in Toronto, working with Nicolas Papernot. I hold a B.Sc. in Computer Science from Paderborn University and an M.Sc. in Computer Security from Ruhr University Bochum, where I graduated top of my class.
Publications
Preprints
2026
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS)
IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)
Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA)
ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS)
2025
ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) ★ Distinguished Paper Award
International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)
USENIX Security Symposium
IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy Machine Learning (SaTML)
Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA)
2024
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P)
ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS)
ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS)
2023
Dissertation ★ Faculty Award for Outstanding Achievement
USENIX Security Symposium
IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy Machine Learning (SaTML)
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS)
European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks (ESANN)
2022
Annual International Cryptology Conference (CRYPTO)
2021
2020
International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)
Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC)
Teaching
Instructor
Teaching Assistant
Service
Reviewing
Keynotes, Panels & Talks
2026
2025
2024
2023
2021
Press
Artificially Generated Media
Drone Security
Accidental Trigger
Deep Fake Detection
Adversarially Robust Speech Recognition