cv

A brief overview of my curriculum vitae.

Basics

Name Christian Mainka
Title Professor Dr.-Ing.
Location School of Electrical, Information and Media Engineering,
University of Wuppertal,
42119 Wuppertal, Germany

Research Topics

  • Web Security
    • Browser security: Cross-Site Leaks, Same-Origin Policy
    • Web protocol security: Single Sign-On, OAuth, OpenID Connect, REST
    • Focusing on vulnerabilty detection, attack development, and flow analyses
  • Data Security
    • Document security: PDF, ODF, OOXML
    • Data format security: JSON, XML
    • Focusing on signature, encryption, information leakage, and code execution

Education

  • 2017
    PhD
    Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
    Dissertation Title: "On Message-Level Security"
  • 2012
    Master IT Security
    Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
    Master Thesis' Title: "Automatic Penetration Test Tool for Detection of XML Signature Wrapping Attacks in Web Services"
  • 2013
    Bachelor Applied Computer Science
    Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
    Bachelor Thesis' Title: "Developing a Security Analysis Tool for OpenID-Based Single Sign-on Systems"
  • 2010
    Bachelor IT Security
    Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
    Bachelor Thesis' Title: "Automatic Penetration Test Tool for Detection of XML Signature Wrapping Attacks in Web Services"

Experience

  • 2025
    Professor
    ROSES
    (Robust, Secure and Privacy-Preserving Smart Systems)
    School of Electrical, Information and Media Engineering
    University of Wuppertal, Germany
  • 2018
    Tenured researcher, student councilor (Studienrat i.H.)
    Chair for Network and Datasecurity
    Faculty of Compter Science
    Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
  • 2017
    Postdoctoral researcher
    Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
  • 2014
    Co-Founder & CTO
    Hackmanit GmbH, Bochum, Germany.
    hackmanit.de
  • 2012
    Freelancer
    Penetration Tests, Training, Threat Analysis
  • 2012
    PhD Candidate
    Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Awards

  • 2024
    Excellent Teaching Award
  • 2022
    Best Paper Award on CSAW (2nd place)
    • For the paper "Oops... Code Execution and Content Spoofing: The First Comprehensive Analysis of OpenDocument Signatures"
    • Awarded with 500 EUR on the Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW), Category: Applied Research Competition.
  • 2022
    5x5000 Competition: "Online or presence teaching - it fits!"
    • Winner with the project "e-Hacking"
    • Awarded by the Centre for Teaching and Learning (Zentrum für Wissenschaftsdidaktik, ZfW) at Ruhr-University Bochum
  • 2021
    ACM CCS Best Paper Award
    • For the paper "XSinator.Com: From a Formal Model to the Automatic Evaluation of Cross-Site Leaks in Web Browsers"
    • Awarded on the ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security.
  • 2019
    Best Paper Award on CSAW (1st place)
    • For the paper "1 Trillion Dollar Refund: How To Spoof PDF Signatures"
    • Awarded with 700 EUR on the Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW), Category: Applied Research Competition.

Networks

Services