Prof. Dr. Alena Naiakshina will fill the professorship Developer Centered Security from November 2021. “I deal with diverse topics in IT security, with a focus on user-friendly systems for software developers. As part of my work, I conduct studies with software developers to study their behavior with regard to security,” she explains. The underlying background of her research is that, just like end users, software developers are usually not security experts. A lack of understanding of security in the development process can later lead to millions of end users being put at risk.

During her doctoral studies at the University of Bonn, Naiakshina researched the use case of secure password storage. Before moving to RUB, the security expert was part of the Usable Security and Privacy research group with Prof. Dr. Matthew Smith at the University of Bonn. Her goal is to sustainably improve software security with a better understanding of software developers and their security behavior. In addition, she is also studying the design of security studies with software developers. “While there is a wide range of knowledge on study design with end users, it is still unclear whether this knowledge can be applied to the design of security studies with software developers,” Naiakshina explains her additional research interest.