Ina Berenice Fink, M.Sc.

Ina Berenice Fink, M.Sc.

Researcher

Ahornstraße 55, building E3 52074 Aachen Germany
9031
+49 241 80-21419
ina.fink@comsys.rwth-aachen.de

Short CV

Background
I have been a researcher and PhD student at the Chair of Communication and Distributed Systems since September 2019. I hold an M.Sc. in Computer Science from RWTH Aachen University, completed in July 2019. As a member of both the Security and Privacy Group and the Cyber-Physical Systems Group, my research focuses on developing tailored solutions for reliable and secure communication in specialized environments, including industrial and critical infrastructures.

Awards
In June 2020, I received the 1st prize of the Women’s STEM Award sponsored by Deutsche Telekom AG for my master’s thesis on “Advanced In-Network Security for Smart Devices”. In May 2019, I was awarded the 1st prize of the Female Student Travel Award 2019 by the Collaborative Research Center MAKI (Multi-Mechanisms Adaptation for the Future Internet) in recognition of my academic performance.

Projects

I am currently affiliated with the VeN2uS project, where I research how to combine high communication reliability and resilience with low latency in the context of critical infrastructure. Before, I was associated with the CONSENT project, where I examined how to enhance smart home security with access control and software-defined networking. As a student assistant (2017-2019), I was further involved in the myneData and TRINICS projects.

Teaching

I am/have been involved in various teaching activities at RWTH Aachen University. These include supervising topics in our preseminar and seminar courses as well as working as a teaching assistant for our basic and advanced lectures (e.g., Data Communication and Security and Advanced Internet Technology) and our Practical Internet eXperience (PIX) Lab. Furthermore, I supervised several student projects in our Research Focus Classes (Cyber-Physical System Security, In-Network ProcessingSecuring Industrial Networks), and I was employed as a part-time lecturer for Sicherheit in Datennetzen (B course) at FH Aachen in WS 2020/2021.

I regularly offer individual topics for bachelor’s and master’s theses. If you are interested in writing your thesis with me, please drop me a short mail with your motivation and concrete interests under consideration of our general recommendations regarding available theses.

Publications

Advancing Network Monitoring with Packet-Level Records and Selective Flow Aggregation. Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS ‘25), May 12 - May 16, 2025, Honolulu, HI, USA. May 2025.
Emulating and Evaluating Transport Layer Protocols for Resilient Communication in Smart Grids. Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS ‘25), May 12 - May 16, 2025, Honolulu, HI, USA. May 2025.
Resilient Control Center to Substation Device Communication. Proceedings of the CIRED Chicago Workshop 2024 on Resilience of Electric Distribution Systems, Nov 7 - Nov 8, 2024, Chicago, IL, United States. November 2024.
Reliable and Secure Control Center to Station Device Communication. Proceedings of the CIRED workshop on Increasing Distribution Network Hosting Capacity 2024, Jun 19 - Jun 20, 2024, Vienna, Austria. June 2024.
Poster: Resiliente Kommunikation für die Fernwirktechnik in digitalen Umspannwerken. VDE ETG/FNN-Tutorial 2024 Schutz- und Leittechnik, Mar 5 - Mar 6, 2024, Leipzig, Germany. March 2024.
Designing Secure and Privacy-Preserving Information Systems for Industry Benchmarking. Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE ‘23), vol. 13901, Jun 12 - Jun 16, 2023, Zaragoza, Spain. June 2023.
Interconnected grid protection systems - reference grid for testing an adaptive protection scheme. 27th International Conference on Electricity Distribution (CIRED 2023), Jun 12 - Jun 15, 2023, Rome, Italy. January 2023.
A False Sense of Security? Revisiting the State of Machine Learning-Based Industrial Intrusion Detection. Proceedings of the 8th ACM Cyber-Physical System Security Workshop (CPSS ‘22), May 30 - May 30, 2022, Nagasaki Japan. Event co-located with the 17th ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS '22). May 2022.
Interconnected network protection systems - the basis for the reliable and safe operation of distribution grids with a high penetration of renewable energies and electric vehicle. Proceedings of the CIRED workshop on E-mobility and power distribution systems 2022, Jun 2 - Jun 3, 2022, Porto, Portugal. January 2022.
Transparent End-to-End Security for Publish/Subscribe Communication in Cyber-Physical Systems. Proceedings of the 1st ACM Workshop on Secure and Trustworthy Cyber-Physical Systems (SaT-CPS ‘21), Apr 28 - Apr 28, 2021, Virtual Event, USA. Event co-located with the 11th ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY '21). April 2021.
Revisiting the Privacy Needs of Real-World Applicable Company Benchmarking. Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Encrypted Computing & Applied Homomorphic Cryptography (WAHC ‘20), Dec 15 - Dec 15, 2020, Virtual Event. December 2020.
Extending MUD to Smartphones. IEEE, Nov 16 - Nov 19, 2020, Sydney, Australia. November 2020.
Easing the Conscience with OPC UA: An Internet-Wide Study on Insecure Deployments. Proceedings of the Internet Measurement Conference (IMC ‘20), Oct 27 - Oct 29, 2020, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. October 2020.
Assessing the Security of OPC UA Deployments. Proceedings of the 1st ITG Workshop on IT Security (ITSec ‘20), Apr 2 - Apr 3, 2020, Tübingen, Germany. April 2020.
Privacy-preserving Comparison of Cloud Exposure Induced by Mobile Apps. Proceedings of the 14th EAI International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services (MobiQuitous), Melbourne, Australia. November 2017.
BrainLab - Ein Framework für mobile neurologische Untersuchungen. 62. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie e.V. (GMDS), Oldenburg, Germany. August 2017.
BrainLab – towards mobile brain research. Informatics for Health 2017, Manchester, UK. April 2017.

Advised Theses

Assessing the Effectiveness of Different Network Monitoring Approaches for Intrusion Detection in the IIoT
Master's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, July 2024
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Ulrike Meyer (IT-Sec)
A Topic in Smart Grid Communication
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, June 2024
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Stefan Kowalewski (i11)
Designing and Assessing an Automated Policy-based Framework for Comprehensive and Retroffitable Security in Industrial Networks
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, April 2024
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Ulrike Meyer (IT-Sec)
FOLKS Award for the best Bachelor's thesis in 2024
Measuring the Performance of Starlink in Coastal Waters
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, December 2023
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Stefan Decker (i5)
Deep Space Extension for NS-3 to Evaluate the Performance of Communication Protocols
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, October 2023
Advisors: Jan Bauer (FKIE), Ina Berenice Fink
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Ulf Kulau (TUHH)
A Topic in Network Monitoring
Master's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, September 2023
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Ulrike Meyer (IT-Sec)
Emulation-based Refinement of a Resilient Communication Concept for Future Power Grid Protection Systems
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, June 2023
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Stefan Kowalewski (i11)
A Topic in Network Monitoring
Master's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, May 2023
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Ulrike Meyer (IT-Sec)
A Topic in Communication in Smart Grids
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, December 2022
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Stefan Kowalewski (i11)
Analyzing Communication Protocols in the Context of Smart Grids
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, November 2022
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Stefan Kowalewski (i11)
Evaluating Multipath TCP in the Context of Critical Infrastructure Networks
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, April 2022
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Stefan Kowalewski (i11)
Exploring Programmable Data Planes for Security in Industrial Communication
Master's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, March 2022
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Ulrike Meyer (IT-Sec)
Extending LoRaWAN for Time-Critical Control in Industrial Wireless Networks
Master's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, November 2021
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Stefan Kowalewski (i11)
Efficient Enforcement of Industrial MUD Using SDN
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, October 2021
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Ulrike Meyer (IT-Sec)
Enhancing the Security of Industrial Control Systems with MUD
Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, October 2020
Examiners: Klaus Wehrle, Bernhard Rumpe (i3)