Phd - Security for Distributed Machine Learning F/m

**Requisition ID**:286615
**Work Area**:Software-Design and Development
**Expected Travel**:0 - 10%
**Career Status**:Student
**Employment Type**:Limited Full Time

**COMPANY DESCRIPTION**

SAP values the entrepreneurial spirit, fostering creativity and building lasting relationships with our employees. We know that a diverse and inclusive workforce keeps us competitive and provides opportunities for all. We believe that together we can transform industries, grow economics, lift up societies and sustain our environment. Because it’s the best-run businesses that make the world run better and improve people’s lives.

**ABOUT US - SAP SECURITY RESEARCH**
Maintaining security is a constantly shifting task, and we need to respond with continuous learning and research. The portfolio of SAP Security Research contains those topics that we believe are most important for SAP’s security future.
SAP’s vision to secure business is built on 3 ideals: Zero-Vulnerability, to harden the software by eliminating vulnerabilities, Defensible Application, to enable the software to identify and prevent attacks, and Zero-Knowledge, to make any theft of data useless through encryption.

**PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES**

**CONTEXT**
- With the ever-growing network of interconnected physical objects, we observe a democratization of technological trends such as Industrial IoT, Industry 4.0 or Edge Computing - and the list keeps on expanding daily-. Those materialize the convergence of IT/OT (Information/Operational Technology), with the immediate promises for early adopters: to maximize business value of their (legacy) physical assets, and to increase their operational efficiency.

**PROBLEM STATEMENT**

**OBJECTIVE**
- With this PhD position, we aim at developing an efficient and privacy-preserving approach for distributed AI-based software. This involves protection of intellectual property (IP) and the protection of inputs & outputs of such software.
- In the last decade, this topic brought the attention of the security research community. But the proposed solutions come with major drawbacks. Leveraging on privacy-preserving computation techniques (e.g. Fully Homomorphic Encryption, Multi-Party Computation or Garbled Circuit), usually introduce an important performance bottleneck, and a lack of advanced analytics capabilities. Consequently, this has deterred their adoption by the Industry.

**RESEARCH DIRECTION**
- Study existing cryptographic techniques and their suitability to the protection of the underlying AI-based software (IP protection and input and output privacy)
- Investigate novel (cryptographic) techniques for AI -based software IP safeguarding and data protection.
- Explore innovative solutions addressing performance bottlenecks and advanced analytics mandatory for industrial use cases.

**EXPECTATIONS AND TASKS**

**PROFILE/EDUCATION/SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES**
- University Level: MSc (top 10% performer in university will be favored) or engineering degree
- Excellent programming skills (C/C++, Java, JavaScript, Python)
- Experience in modern software development tools (Git, Docker, Debuggers)
- Good skills in AI (Tensorflow, Deep Neural Network)
- Knowledge of data privacy, computer security and/or big data processing
- Fluency in English (working language). Knowledge of French, German or other language is a plus but not a prerequisite
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Willingness to travel (mainly in Europe)

**PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE**
- None required

**WHAT YOU GET FROM US**

**SAP'S DIVERSITY COMMITMENT**
To harness the power of innovation, SAP invests in the development of its diverse employees. We aspire to leverage the qualities and appreciate the unique competencies that each person brings to the company.