Thomas Prantl

M.Sc. Thomas Prantl

Chair of Software Engineering (Informatik II)
Department of Computer Science University of Würzburg
Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg
Informatikgebäude, 1.OG, Room A118
Email: thomas.prantl@uni-wuerzburg.de

Research Interests

Security
Blockchain
IoT
Security and Blockchain Benchmarking

Selected Publications:

A Survey on Secure Group Communication Schemes with Focus on IoT Communication. Prantl, Thomas; Zeck, Timo; Bauer, André; Ten, Peter; Prantl, Dominik; Ben Yahya, Ala Eddine; Iffländer, Lukas; Dmitrienko, Alexandra; Krupitzer, Christian; Kounev, Samuel; in IEEE Access (2022).
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@article{PrZeBaTePrYaIfDmKrKo_IEEEAccess_SGCSurvey, author = {Prantl, Thomas and Zeck, Timo and Bauer, André and Ten, Peter and Prantl, Dominik and Ben Yahya, Ala Eddine and Iffländer, Lukas and Dmitrienko, Alexandra and Krupitzer, Christian and Kounev, Samuel}, journal = {IEEE Access}, keywords = {t_journalmagazine}, publisher = {IEEE}, title = {A Survey on Secure Group Communication Schemes with Focus on IoT Communication}, year = 2022 }

%0 Journal Article %1 PrZeBaTePrYaIfDmKrKo_IEEEAccess_SGCSurvey %A Prantl, Thomas %A Zeck, Timo %A Bauer, André %A Ten, Peter %A Prantl, Dominik %A Ben Yahya, Ala Eddine %A Iffländer, Lukas %A Dmitrienko, Alexandra %A Krupitzer, Christian %A Kounev, Samuel %D 2022 %I IEEE %J IEEE Access %T A Survey on Secure Group Communication Schemes with Focus on IoT Communication
An Experience Report on the Suitability of a Distributed Group Encryption Scheme for an IoT Use Case. Prantl, Thomas; Engel, Simon; Bauer, Andre; Ben Yahya, Ala Eddine; Herrnleben, Stefan; Iffländer, Lukas; Dmitrienko, Alexandra; Kounev, Samuel; in 2022 IEEE 95th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2022) (2022).
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@inproceedings{PrEnBaAlHeIfDmKo2022-IoT/CPS-DistributedGroupEncryption, author = {Prantl, Thomas and Engel, Simon and Bauer, Andre and Ben Yahya, Ala Eddine and Herrnleben, Stefan and Iffländer, Lukas and Dmitrienko, Alexandra and Kounev, Samuel}, booktitle = {2022 IEEE 95th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2022)}, keywords = {myown}, organization = {IEEE}, title = {An Experience Report on the Suitability of a Distributed Group Encryption Scheme for an IoT Use Case}, year = 2022 }

%0 Conference Paper %1 PrEnBaAlHeIfDmKo2022-IoT/CPS-DistributedGroupEncryption %A Prantl, Thomas %A Engel, Simon %A Bauer, Andre %A Ben Yahya, Ala Eddine %A Herrnleben, Stefan %A Iffländer, Lukas %A Dmitrienko, Alexandra %A Kounev, Samuel %B 2022 IEEE 95th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2022) %D 2022 %T An Experience Report on the Suitability of a Distributed Group Encryption Scheme for an IoT Use Case
SCRAPS: Scalable Collective Remote Attestation for Pub-Sub IoT Networks with Untrusted Proxy Verifier Petzi, Lukas; Ben Yahya, Ala Eddine; Dmitrienko, Alexandra; Tsudik, Gene; Prantl, Thomas; Kounev, Samuel; (2022). (Bd. USENIX Security ’22)
- [ Abstract ]
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Remote Attestation (RA) is a basic security mechanism that detects malicious presence on various types of computing components, e.g., IoT devices. In a typical IoT setting, RA involves a trusted Verifier that sends a challenge to an untrusted remote Prover, which must in turn reply with a fresh and authentic evidence of being in a trustworthy state. However,most current RA schemes assume a central Verifier, which rep-resents a single point of failure. This feature is problematic when mutually suspicious stakeholders are involved. Furthermore, scalability issues arise as the number of IoT devices (Provers) grows. Although some RA schemes allow peer Provers to act as Verifiers, they involve unrealistic (for IoT devices) requirements, such as time synchronization and synchronous communication. Moreover, they incur heavy memory, computation,and communication burdens, while not considering sleeping or otherwise disconnected devices. Motivated by the need to address these limitations, we construct Scalable Collective Remote Attestation for Pub-Sub (SCRAPS), a novel collective RA scheme. It achieves scalability by outsourcing Verifier duties to a smart contract and mitigates DoS attacks against both Provers and Verifiers. It also removes the need for synchronous communication. Furthermore,RA evidence in SCRAPS is publicly verifiable, which significantly reduces the number of attestation evidence computations, thus lowering Prover burden. We report on a prototype of SCRAPS over Hyperledger Sawtooth (a blockchain geared for IoT use-cases) and evaluate its performance, scalability, and security aspects.

@proceedings{petzi2022scraps, abstract = {Remote Attestation (RA) is a basic security mechanism that detects malicious presence on various types of computing components, e.g., IoT devices. In a typical IoT setting, RA involves a trusted Verifier that sends a challenge to an untrusted remote Prover, which must in turn reply with a fresh and authentic evidence of being in a trustworthy state. However,most current RA schemes assume a central Verifier, which rep-resents a single point of failure. This feature is problematic when mutually suspicious stakeholders are involved. Furthermore, scalability issues arise as the number of IoT devices (Provers) grows. Although some RA schemes allow peer Provers to act as Verifiers, they involve unrealistic (for IoT devices) requirements, such as time synchronization and synchronous communication. Moreover, they incur heavy memory, computation,and communication burdens, while not considering sleeping or otherwise disconnected devices. Motivated by the need to address these limitations, we construct Scalable Collective Remote Attestation for Pub-Sub (SCRAPS), a novel collective RA scheme. It achieves scalability by outsourcing Verifier duties to a smart contract and mitigates DoS attacks against both Provers and Verifiers. It also removes the need for synchronous communication. Furthermore,RA evidence in SCRAPS is publicly verifiable, which significantly reduces the number of attestation evidence computations, thus lowering Prover burden. We report on a prototype of SCRAPS over Hyperledger Sawtooth (a blockchain geared for IoT use-cases) and evaluate its performance, scalability, and security aspects.}, author = {Petzi, Lukas and Ben Yahya, Ala Eddine and Dmitrienko, Alexandra and Tsudik, Gene and Prantl, Thomas and Kounev, Samuel}, keywords = {myown}, note = {Coming Soon}, title = {SCRAPS: Scalable Collective Remote Attestation for Pub-Sub IoT Networks with Untrusted Proxy Verifier}, volume = {USENIX Security '22}, year = 2022 }

%0 Conference Proceedings %1 petzi2022scraps %A Petzi, Lukas %A Ben Yahya, Ala Eddine %A Dmitrienko, Alexandra %A Tsudik, Gene %A Prantl, Thomas %A Kounev, Samuel %D 2022 %T SCRAPS: Scalable Collective Remote Attestation for Pub-Sub IoT Networks with Untrusted Proxy Verifier %V USENIX Security '22 %X Remote Attestation (RA) is a basic security mechanism that detects malicious presence on various types of computing components, e.g., IoT devices. In a typical IoT setting, RA involves a trusted Verifier that sends a challenge to an untrusted remote Prover, which must in turn reply with a fresh and authentic evidence of being in a trustworthy state. However,most current RA schemes assume a central Verifier, which rep-resents a single point of failure. This feature is problematic when mutually suspicious stakeholders are involved. Furthermore, scalability issues arise as the number of IoT devices (Provers) grows. Although some RA schemes allow peer Provers to act as Verifiers, they involve unrealistic (for IoT devices) requirements, such as time synchronization and synchronous communication. Moreover, they incur heavy memory, computation,and communication burdens, while not considering sleeping or otherwise disconnected devices. Motivated by the need to address these limitations, we construct Scalable Collective Remote Attestation for Pub-Sub (SCRAPS), a novel collective RA scheme. It achieves scalability by outsourcing Verifier duties to a smart contract and mitigates DoS attacks against both Provers and Verifiers. It also removes the need for synchronous communication. Furthermore,RA evidence in SCRAPS is publicly verifiable, which significantly reduces the number of attestation evidence computations, thus lowering Prover burden. We report on a prototype of SCRAPS over Hyperledger Sawtooth (a blockchain geared for IoT use-cases) and evaluate its performance, scalability, and security aspects.
Towards a Cryptography Benchmark: A View on Attribute Based Encryption Schemes. Prantl, Thomas; Zeck, Timo; Iffländer, Lukas; Beierlieb, Lukas; Dmitrenko, Alexandra; Krupitzer, Christian; Kounev, Samuel; in 2022 5th Conference on Cloud and Internet of Things (CIoT) (2022).
- [ BibTeX ]
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@inproceedings{PrZeIfBeDmKrKo2022-CIoT-ABEBenchmark, author = {Prantl, Thomas and Zeck, Timo and Iffländer, Lukas and Beierlieb, Lukas and Dmitrenko, Alexandra and Krupitzer, Christian and Kounev, Samuel}, booktitle = {2022 5th Conference on Cloud and Internet of Things (CIoT)}, keywords = {myown}, organization = {IEEE}, title = {Towards a Cryptography Benchmark: A View on Attribute Based Encryption Schemes}, year = 2022 }

%0 Conference Paper %1 PrZeIfBeDmKrKo2022-CIoT-ABEBenchmark %A Prantl, Thomas %A Zeck, Timo %A Iffländer, Lukas %A Beierlieb, Lukas %A Dmitrenko, Alexandra %A Krupitzer, Christian %A Kounev, Samuel %B 2022 5th Conference on Cloud and Internet of Things (CIoT) %D 2022 %T Towards a Cryptography Benchmark: A View on Attribute Based Encryption Schemes
ComBench: A Benchmarking Framework for Publish/Subscribe Communication Protocols Under Network Limitations. Herrnleben, Stefan; Leidinger, Maximilian; Lesch, Veronika; Prantl, Thomas; Grohmann, Johannes; Krupitzer, Christian; Kounev, Samuel; in Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools, Q. Zhao, L. Xia (Hrsg.) (2021). 72–92.
- [ Abstract ]
- [ BibTeX ]
- [ EndNote ]
- [ URL ]
- [ Download ]
Efficient and dependable communication is a highly relevant aspect for Internet of Things (IoT) systems in which tiny sensors, actuators, wearables, or other smart devices exchange messages. Various publish/subscribe protocols address the challenges of communication in IoT systems. The selection process of a suitable protocol should consider the communication behavior of the application, the protocol's performance, the resource requirements on the end device, and the network connection quality, as IoT environments often rely on wireless networks. Benchmarking is a common approach to evaluate and compare systems, considering the performance and aspects like dependability or security. In this paper, we present our IoT communication benchmarking framework ComBench for publish/subscribe protocols focusing on constrained networks with varying quality conditions. The benchmarking framework supports system designers, software engineers, and application developers to select and investigate the behavior of communication protocols. Our benchmarking framework contributes to (i) show the impact of fluctuating network quality on communication, (ii) compare multiple protocols, protocol features, and protocol implementations, and (iii) analyze scalability, robustness, and dependability of clients, networks, and brokers in different scenarios. Our case study demonstrates the applicability of our framework to support the decision for the best-suited protocol in various scenarios.

@inproceedings{10.1007/978-3-030-92511-6_5, abstract = {Efficient and dependable communication is a highly relevant aspect for Internet of Things (IoT) systems in which tiny sensors, actuators, wearables, or other smart devices exchange messages. Various publish/subscribe protocols address the challenges of communication in IoT systems. The selection process of a suitable protocol should consider the communication behavior of the application, the protocol's performance, the resource requirements on the end device, and the network connection quality, as IoT environments often rely on wireless networks. Benchmarking is a common approach to evaluate and compare systems, considering the performance and aspects like dependability or security. In this paper, we present our IoT communication benchmarking framework ComBench for publish/subscribe protocols focusing on constrained networks with varying quality conditions. The benchmarking framework supports system designers, software engineers, and application developers to select and investigate the behavior of communication protocols. Our benchmarking framework contributes to (i) show the impact of fluctuating network quality on communication, (ii) compare multiple protocols, protocol features, and protocol implementations, and (iii) analyze scalability, robustness, and dependability of clients, networks, and brokers in different scenarios. Our case study demonstrates the applicability of our framework to support the decision for the best-suited protocol in various scenarios.}, address = {Cham}, author = {Herrnleben, Stefan and Leidinger, Maximilian and Lesch, Veronika and Prantl, Thomas and Grohmann, Johannes and Krupitzer, Christian and Kounev, Samuel}, booktitle = {Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools}, editor = {Zhao, Qianchuan and Xia, Li}, keywords = {myown}, pages = {72–92}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, title = {ComBench: A Benchmarking Framework for Publish/Subscribe Communication Protocols Under Network Limitations}, year = 2021 }

%0 Conference Paper %1 10.1007/978-3-030-92511-6_5 %A Herrnleben, Stefan %A Leidinger, Maximilian %A Lesch, Veronika %A Prantl, Thomas %A Grohmann, Johannes %A Krupitzer, Christian %A Kounev, Samuel %B Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools %C Cham %D 2021 %E Zhao, Qianchuan %E Xia, Li %I Springer International Publishing %P 72--92 %T ComBench: A Benchmarking Framework for Publish/Subscribe Communication Protocols Under Network Limitations %U https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-92511-6_5 %X Efficient and dependable communication is a highly relevant aspect for Internet of Things (IoT) systems in which tiny sensors, actuators, wearables, or other smart devices exchange messages. Various publish/subscribe protocols address the challenges of communication in IoT systems. The selection process of a suitable protocol should consider the communication behavior of the application, the protocol's performance, the resource requirements on the end device, and the network connection quality, as IoT environments often rely on wireless networks. Benchmarking is a common approach to evaluate and compare systems, considering the performance and aspects like dependability or security. In this paper, we present our IoT communication benchmarking framework ComBench for publish/subscribe protocols focusing on constrained networks with varying quality conditions. The benchmarking framework supports system designers, software engineers, and application developers to select and investigate the behavior of communication protocols. Our benchmarking framework contributes to (i) show the impact of fluctuating network quality on communication, (ii) compare multiple protocols, protocol features, and protocol implementations, and (iii) analyze scalability, robustness, and dependability of clients, networks, and brokers in different scenarios. Our case study demonstrates the applicability of our framework to support the decision for the best-suited protocol in various scenarios.

List of all publications: Thomas Prantl

Teaching

Provisioning of topics for "Seminar Software Engineering" and supervision of participating students
Supervisions of software project in the "Softwarepraktikum" (practical course teaching students to complete software projects in a team)
Coordination of the exercises on the bachelor's lecture "Softwaretechnik" by Prof. Samuel Kounev, University of Würzburg

Conference and Workshop Organisation

ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Evaluation (ICPE) 2022 as Web Chair
SPS Special Session on Cyber Resilience and Antifragility in Complex Distributed Systems (CyRA) 2021 as PC member
Workshop on Self-Aware Computing (SEAC) 2020 as Publicity Chair

Selected Reviewer Activities

Mascots 2020
Mascots 2019
Subreviewer ICPE 2019

Degrees

Master Informatik (Master of Computer Science)
1. Staatsexamen für das Lehramt am Gymnasium (Physik/Informatik)
Bachelor Informatik (Bachelor of Computer Science)
Bachelor Naturwissenschaftliche Grundlagen (Bachelor of Natural Science Foundations)

M.Sc. Thomas Prantl

Research Interests

Selected Publications:

List of all publications: Thomas Prantl

Teaching

Conference and Workshop Organisation

Selected Reviewer Activities

Degrees

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