Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
The "Distributed Systems and Computer Networks" (DistriNet) research group was founded in 1984 as part of the Department of Computer Science at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL). DistriNet is an internationally leading centre in software engineering research, with extensive expertise in middleware for distributed software systems and secure software engineering. The group performs research on software engineering techniques in both domains on a wide range of topics such as computer networks, middleware, internet architectures, network and software security, embedded systems and multi-agent systems. Specific expertise that is relevant for this project includes program verification, risk management, and secure software processes.
Currently DistriNet employs 60 researchers of which 8 professors, 12 post-docs and 40 researchers. The group is actively engaged in multiple national as well as international projects; over the past five years DistriNet collaborated in 35 national and 7 European projects. Experience has been accumulated in different application domains, often in close collaboration with industry partners. During the past few years DistriNet cooperated with over 100 companies.
At the same time DistriNet built a strong track record of industrial training, dissemination and valorization programmes. In the past year, DistriNet co-organized several training workshops as part of AspectLab and industrial security courses such as SecAppDev. DistriNet regularly disseminates research results at various industry-driven events, including L-SEC, VSP, OWASP and JavaPolis. The fact that DistriNet is a founding member of L-SEC, and participates in the board of OWASP Belgium further underlines the long term commitment of DistriNet in such cross-fertilization. In addition, the know-how of DistriNet is at the basis of several spin-off companies, such as Ubizen and QMedit. Ubizen (now part of Verizon Bussiness) is a DistriNet spin-off company specialized in secure e-business and related security services. QMedit (now part of Agfa Healthcare), is a DistriNet spin-off company focused on medical workflow software.
Key personnel
Wouter Joosen is full professor at the Department of Computer Science of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, where he teaches courses on software architecture and component-based software engineering, distributed systems and the engineering of secure service platforms. His research interests are in aspect-oriented software development, focusing on software architecture and middleware, and in security aspects of software, including security in component frameworks and security architectures.
Frank Piessens is professor at the Department of Computer Science of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, where he teaches courses on developing secure software and on formal systems. His research interests are in security aspects of software, including security in operating systems and middleware, security architectures, Java and .NET security, and software interfaces to security technology.
Riccardo Scandariato is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Computer Science of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. His research interests are in the area of secure software engineering, with a particular focus on security-aware software architectures (principles, patterns and methods) and security metrics. E-health is one of his favourite application domains to validate the research results in the above areas. Other research interests include the development processes for secure software and security principles.
