Modern software now consists of over 90% third-party code, mostly from Open-Source. The company CodeShield supports software manufacturers in examining the external software developments for security risks and securely integrating them into their own software. CodeShield, a spin-off of the Heinz Nixdorf Institute at the University of Paderborn and the Fraunhofer IEM, was founded on April 23.
Companies today, obtain a large part of their software from "Open-Source": They use the freely accessible source code of common software and adapt the program code to their own needs. However, Open-Source programs often contain vulnerabilities that hackers can quickly take advantage of. With the CodeShield software tool, companies can identify these weaknesses and determine effective protective measures and updates. “Codeshield enables companies to continue to use the latest open source programs securely. It helps them to detect and fix known and unknown security gaps in Open-Source and third-party code,”explains Prof. Dr. Eric Bodden, one of the co-founders of Codeshield, who conducts research in the areas of software technology and IT security at the Heinz Nixdorf Institute of the University of Paderborn and at Fraunhofer IEM.
CodeShield GmbH is a spin-off of the Heinz Nixdorf Institute at the University of Paderborn and the Fraunhofer Institute for Design Technology Mechatronics IEM. In addition to Prof. Dr. Eric Bodden there are three other research co-founders, Andreas Dann, Manuel Benz and Dr. Johannes Späth. “After our scientific work, we were met by new challenges. By founding CodeShield, we are not just building our own company. We also have the opportunity to apply our research very closely to practice and to develop it further with industry,”explains Andreas Dann, Managing Director of CodeShield. The motivation for the foundation, which is part of the program, “START-UP transfer.NRW”, was due to the requirement from the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The young company is already working successfully with software manufacturers, for example in the areas of insurance, finance and transport.
The Foundation is preceded by years of research
The CodeShield software tool is based on efficient and precise algorithms that help software developers to detect errors in their program code at an early stage. The technology is the result of a long-term joint development phase between the Heinz Nixdorf Institute at the University of Paderborn and the Fraunhofer IEM, which was awarded the German IT Security Award 2016 and most recently the Ernst Denert Software Engineering Award 2019. The collaboration in the research of field Security by Design will continue in the future to bring the latest technologies and research results into business practice. "We developed the topic of code analysis at the Heinz Nixdorf Institute and Fraunhofer IEM. However, industrial partners have asked who will continue to maintain the analysis tools in the coming years. I am glad that the promising cooperation between the research partners and their spin-off, means that the technology has an excellent long-term development perspective,”said Bodden.
Video on the CodeShield tool:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6651800864686120960CodeShield website: https://codeshield.de/
