Jan von der Assen

Jan von der Assen joined the Communication Systems Group (CSG) to pursue his Doctoral Degree under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Burkhard Stiller in July 2021. Jan holds an MSc. in Software Systems from the University of Zurich. As part of his Master's project and Master's thesis, he contributed to the design and implementation of the SecGrid platform.

• Holistic Cybersecurity
  • Identify: Threat and Asset Management, Governance, Business Impact Analysis, Security Economics
  • Protect: Threat Mitigation, Awareness, Secure Design
  • Detect: Anomaly and Event Detection, Monitoring (Network, Execution Environment, Storage)
  • Respond: Deception, Moving Target Defense, Postmortem Analysis (Network, Malware)
  • Recover: Recovery Planning, Implementation, Testing
• Data Mining and Visualization
• Web Technologies
• Computer Engineering (Networks, Distributed Systems)

• Communication Systems Lab Course (HS21, HS22, HS23, HS24)
• Computer Networks and Distributed Systems (HS21, HS22, HS23, 
  HS24)
• Seminar on Internet Economics (HS21, HS22, HS23, HS24)
• Blockchains and Overlay Networks (FS22, FS23, FS24)
• Seminar on Communication Systems (FS22,FS23, FS24)
• Protocols for Multimedia Communication (HS21)
• CAS in Blockchain (HS22,FS23, HS24)

• CAS in Data Science and Machine Learning (FS22)

• Summer School: Deep Dive into Blockchain–Linking Economics, Technology and Law (FS21)

Please check here to see list of open thesis (BA, MA, MAP). If you are interested to work on a project in the list mentioned above or any other project related to my research area, feel free to contact me.

I have been involved in national and European projects, networks, and initiatives targeting research, innovation, and development:

• [2024] CyberMind

• [2023] CyberForce

• [2022 - ongoing] AISym4MED - Synthetic and scalable data platform for medical empowered AI

• [2022 - 2023] CERTIFY - aCtive sEcurity foR connecTed devIces liFecYcles

• [2022 - ongoing] DSI Cybersecurity

• [2022] E-Voting

• [2022] CyberTracer

• [2021] CyberSpec

• [2021 - 2025] CheeseChain - Application of Blockchain Technology in the Swiss Cheese Supply Chain

• [2021 - 2023] CONCORDIA - Cyber Security Competence for Research and Innovation

• [2019 - 2022] SecGrid

2025

• [Journal] Jan von der Assen, Chao Feng, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Róbert Oleš, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: GuardFS: a File System for Integrated Detection and Mitigation of Linux-based Ransomware, Journal of Information Security and Applications, 2025 (To appear)

• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Jan Marc Lüthi, José María Jorquera Valero, Francisco Enguix, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: HyperDtct: Hypervisor-based Ransomware Detection using System Calls, 2025 IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR), Chania, Greece, August 2025, pp 1–6 (To appear)

• [Preprint] Jan von der Assen, Sandrin Raphael Hunkeler, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Enrique Tomás Martínez Beltrán, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: Reputation System based on Distributed Ledge to Secure Decentralized Federated Learning, Research Square, October 2024 Link

• [Journal] Chao Feng, Alberto Huertas Celdran, Pedro Miguel Sanchez Sanchez, Jan Kreischer, Jan von der Assen, Gerome Bovet, Gregorio Martinez Perez, Burkhard Stiller: CyberForce: A Federated Reinforcement Learning Framework for Malware Mitigation; IEEE, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 2025, pp 1–14. Link

2024

• [Preprint] Jan von der Assen, Sandrin Raphael Hunkeler, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Enrique Tomás Martínez Beltrán, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: Reputation System based on Distributed Ledge to Secure Decentralized Federated Learning, Research Square, October 2024 Link

• [Preprint] Chao Feng, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Zien Zeng, Zi Ye, Jan von der Assen, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: Leveraging MTD to Mitigate Poisoning Attacks in Decentralized FL with Non-IID Data, arXiv e-prints (2024): arXiv:2409, October 2024 Link

• [Demo Paper] Jan von der  Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Jamo Sharif, Chao Feng, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: ThreatFinderAI: Automated Threat Modeling Applied to LLM System Integration, 20th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM), Prague, Czech Republic, October, 2024 Link

• [Full Paper] Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Jan von der  Assen, Chao Feng, Sandro Padovan, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: Next Generation of AI-based Ransomware, 2024 IEEE Global Communications Conference: Communication & Information Systems Security, Cape Town, South Africa, December, 2024 Link

• [Preprint] Thomas Grübl, Jan von der Assen, Markus Knecht, Burkhard Stiller: PACCOR4ESP: Embedded Device Security Attestation using Platform Attribute Certificates, arXiv e-prints (2024): arXiv:2407, July 2024 Link
• [Journal] Chao Feng, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Jan von der Assen, Enrique Tomás Martínez Beltrán, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller, DART: A Solution for decentralized federated learning model robustness analysis, Elsevier Array, July 2024 Link
• [Short Paper] Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Rinor Sefa, Burkhard Stiller, Gérôme Bovet: MTFS: A Moving Target Defense-Enabled File System for Malware Mitigation; 2024 IEEE 49th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN), Caen, France, October 2024, pp 1-6 Link
• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Jamo Sharif, Chao Feng, Christian Killer, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: Asset-centric Threat Modeling for AI-based Systems; 2024 IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR), London, England, September 2024, pp 1-8  Link
• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Jasmin Hochuli, Thomas Grübl, Burkhard Stiller: The Danger Within: Insider Threat Modeling Using Business Process Models, 2024 IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR), London, England, September 2024, pp 1–6 Link
• [Book Chapter] Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Josip Harambasic, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: Enhancing Cyber Resilience in IoT: Moving Target Defense for Dynamic Malware Mitigation, in A Complete Handbook on Defending Internet of Things Ecosystems: Challenges and Solution, Elsevier (To appear)
• [Journal] Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Pedro Miguel Sánchez Sánchez, Jan von der Assen, Timo Schenk, Gérôme Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller: RL and Fingerprinting to Select Moving Target Defense Mechanisms for Zero-day Attacks in IoT, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, May 2024 Link
• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Janik Luechinger, Pedro Miguel Sánchez Sánchez, Gérôme Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller:  RansomAI: AI-powered Ransomware for Stealthy Encryption;  2024 Cybersecurity Conference (JNIC), Sevilla, Spain, May 2024, pp. 1-2 Link
• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Christian Killer, Alessandro De Carli, Burkhard Stiller: Performance Analysis of Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks and Centralized Clouds, 2024 IEEE International Workshop on Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks, Dublin, Ireland, May 2024, pp. 1-6. Link
• [Preprint] Jan von der Assen, Jamo Sharif, Chao Feng, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: Asset-driven Threat Modeling for AI-based Systems, arXiv e-prints (2024): arXiv:2403, March 2024Link
• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Chao Feng, Alberto Huertas Celdran, Raffael Mogicato, Adrian Zermin, Vichhay Ok, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: A Lightweight Data Mining Platform for Dynamic and Reproducible Malware Analysis, 2024 11th Swiss Conference on Data Science (SDS), Zürich, Switzerland, May 2024, pp. 1-6 Link
• [Preprint] Jan von der Assen, Muriel Franco, Muyao Dong,  Burkhard Stiller: QuantTM: Business-Centric Threat Quantification for Risk Management and Cyber Resilience, arXiv e-prints (2024): arXiv:2402, February 2024Link
• [Preprint] Jan von der Assen, Chao Feng, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Róbert Oleš, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: GuardFS: a File System for Integrated Detection and Mitigation of Linux-based Ransomware, Available at SSRN, February 2024Link
• [Journal] Muriel Franco, Fabian Künzler, Jan von der Assen, Chao Feng,  Burkhard Stiller: RCVaR: an Economic Approach to Estimate Cyberattacks Costs using Data from Industry Reports, Computers & Security, April 2024 Link

2023

• [Journal] Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Pedro Miguel Sánchez Sánchez, Jan von der Assen, Dennis Shushack, Ángel Luis Perales Gómez, Gérôme Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller: Behavioral fingerprinting to detect ransomware in resource-constrained devices, Computers & Security, Vol. 135, 2023 Link
• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Janik Luechinger, Pedro Miguel Sánchez Sánchez, Gérôme Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller:  RansomAI: AI-powered Ransomware for Stealthy Encryption; 2023 IEEE Global Communications Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, December 2023, pp. 1-6. Link
• [Preprint] Chao Feng, Alberto Huertas Celdran, Pedro Miguel Sanchez Sanchez, Jan Kreischer, Jan von der Assen, Gerome Bovet, Gregorio Martinez Perez, and Burkhard Stiller: CyberForce: A Federated Reinforcement Learning Framework for Malware Mitigation; arXiv e-prints (2023): arXiv-2307 Link
• [Preprint]  Muriel Franco, Fabian Künzler, Jan von der Assen, Chao Feng,  Burkhard Stiller. RCVaR: an Economic Approach to Estimate Cyberattacks Costs using Data from Industry Reports; arXiv e-prints (2023): arXiv-2307 Link
• [Full Paper] Chao Feng, Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Steven Näf, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller:  FeDef: A Federated Defense Framework Using Cooperative Moving Target Defense; 2023 8th International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Technologies (SpliTech), Bol/Split, Croatia, June 2023, pp. 1-6 Link
• [Preprint] Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Rinor Sefa, Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: MTFS: a Moving Target Defense-Enabled File System for Malware Mitigation; arXiv e-prints (2023): arXiv-2306 Link
• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Nicolas Huber, Gérôme Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller: Moving Target Defense Strategy Selection against Malware in Resource-Constrained Devices; IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Resilience, Venice, Italy, July 2023, pp. 1–7 Link
• [Demo Paper] Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Adrian Zermin, Raffael Mogicato,
  Gérôme Bovet, Burkhard Stiller: SecBox: A Lightweight Container-based Sandbox
  for Dynamic Malware Analysis; IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS 2023), Miami, USA, May 2023, pp. 1-3Link
• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Pedro Miguel Sánchez Sánchez, Jordan Cedeño, Gérôme Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller: A Lightweight Moving Target Defense Framework for Multi-purpose Malware Affecting IoT Devices; IEEE International Conference on Communications, Rome, Italy, May 2023, pp. 1-6 Link
• [Full Paper] Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Jan von der Assen, Konstantin Moser, Pedro Miguel Sánchez Sánchez, Gérôme Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller: Early Detection of Cryptojacker Malicious Behaviors on IoT Crowdsensing Devices; IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS 2023), Miami, USA, May 2023, pp. 1-8Link
• [Preprint] Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Pedro Miguel Sánchez Sánchez, Jan von der Assen, Timo Schenk, Gérôme Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller: RL and Fingerprinting to Select Moving Target Defense Mechanisms for Zero-day Attacks in IoT; arXiv e-prints (2023): arXiv-2212 Link

2022

• [Full Paper] Katharina O. E. Müller, Jan von der Assen, Chao Feng, Burkhard Stiller: An Overview and Ontology of Privacy to Preserve Privacy in Ultra-Wideband Networks, IEEE International Conference on Privacy Computing, Haikou, China, December 2022, pp. 1-9. Link
• [Full Paper] Jan von der Assen, Muriel F. Franco, Christian Killer, Eder J. Scheid, Burkhard Stiller: CoReTM: An Approach Enabling Cross-Functional Collaborative Threat Modeling; IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Resilience, Virtually, Europe, July 2022, pp. 1–8.Link
• [Dataset] Ramon Solo de Zaldivar, Alberto Huertas Celdrán, Jan von der Assen, Pedro Miguel Sánchez Sánchez, Gérôme Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller: MalwSpecSys: A Dataset Containing Syscalls of an IoT Spectrum Sensor Affected by Heterogeneous Malware, IEEE Dataport, May 2022 Link.
• [Full Paper] Christian Killer, Moritz Eck, Bruno Rodrigues, Jan von der Assen, Roger Staubli and Burkhard Stiller: ProvotuMN: Decentralized, Mix-Net-based, and Receipt-free Voting System; 2022 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC), 2022, pp. 1-9. Link
• [Technical Report] Jan von der Assen, Muriel F. Franco, Christian Killer, Eder J. Scheid, Burkhard Stiller: On Collaborative Threat Modeling; UZH, IFI-TecReport No. 2022.04, Zürich, Switzerland, April 2022. Link
• [Technical Report] Ile Cepilov, Muriel Franco, Eder J. Scheid, Christian Killer, Jan von der Assen, Burkhard Stiller: CCount: Correlating RFID and Camera Data for High Precision Indoor Tracking; University of Zurich, Department of Informatics, Tech. Rep, 1. pp. 1 - 12. Link

2021

• [Demo Paper] Jan von der Assen, Muriel Franco, Bruno Rodrigues, Burkhard Stiller: Analysis and Classification of Cyberattack Traffic Using the SecGrid Platform; IEEE 46th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) - Demo Session, Edmond, Canada, October 2021, pp 1–3. Link
• [Full Paper] Muriel F. Franco, Jan von der Assen, Luc Boillat, Christian Killer, Bruno Rodrigues, Eder J. Scheid, Lisandro Granville, Burkhard Stiller: SecGrid: A Visual System for the Analysis and ML-Based Classification of Cyberattack Traffic; IEEE 46th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN 2021), Virtually, Edmonton, Canada, October 2021, pp. 1–8. Link
• [Short Paper] Muriel F. Franco, Jan von der Assen, Luc Boillat, Christian Killer, Bruno Rodrigues, Eder J. Scheid, Lisandro Granville, Burkhard Stiller, Bruno Rodrigues, Burkhard Stiller: DDoSGrid: a Platform for the Post-mortem Analysis and Visualization of DDoS Attacks; IFIP Networking 2021, Virtually, Espoo, Finland, June 21-24 2021, pp. 1–3.Link

• [Bachelor Thesis] Miro Vannini: CoReTM 2.0: a Design Study on Semi-automated Threat Modeling with STRIDE-per-Interaction; Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, September 2024, Link
• [Independent Study] Raphael Wäspi: Quantitative Maturity Assessment of DevSecOps Practices Using Metrics; Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, August 2024, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Valentin Meyer: Integration and Deployment of a Blockchain-based Supply Chain Tracing Application; Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, August 2024, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Niklas Schmatloch: Design and Implementation of a Malware to Detect Containerized Sandboxing; Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, August 2024, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Jan Marc Lüthi: HyperDtct: Hypervisor-Based Ransomware Detection; Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, July 2024, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Sandrin Hunkeler: Distributed Ledger-based Gossiping for Decentralized Federated Learning; Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, June 2024, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Jano Sven Vukadinovic: Automatic Testing of Medical Equipment using Sensor-based Spectral Analysis; Unviersität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, May 2024, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Jasmin Hochuli: Design and Implementation of an Insider Threat Modeling System Using Business Process Models; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, January 2024, Link
• [Master Thesis] Sandro Padovan: AI-powered Ransomware to Stay Hidden; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, January 2024, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Jamo Sharif: Design and Implementation of a Threat Modeling Approach for AI-based Systems; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, December 2023, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Viachaslau Berasneu: Design and Implementation of a System for Reproducible Machine and Deep Learning Models; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, September 2023, Link
• [Master Thesis] Muyao Dong: Design and Implementation of a Business-driven Threat Quantification Framework; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, September 2023, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Vichhay Ok: Design and Implementation of a Reproducible and Realistic Data Collection System for Dynamic Malware Analysis; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, August 2023, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Jonathan Contreras: Location-based Open Source Intelligence to Infer Information in LoRa Networks; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, July 2023, Link
• [Master Thesis]  Róbert Oles: Detection and Classification of Malware using File System Dimensions for MTD on IoT; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, May 2023, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Maximilian Huwyler: Design and Implementation of a Comparison Tool for Selecting an Information Security Risk Assessment Method; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, March 2023, Link
• [Master Thesis] Janik Lüchinger: AI-powered Ransomware to Optimize its Impact on IoT Spectrum Sensors; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, March 2023, Link
• [Master Project] Dario Gagulic, Lynn Zumtaugwald, Siddhant Sahu: Ransomware Detection with Machine Learning in Storage Systems; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, February 2023, Link
• [Master Project] Raffael Mogicato, Adrian Zermin: Design and Implementation of a Collaborative, Lightweight Malware Analysis Sandbox using Container Virtualization; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, February 2023, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Josip Harambašić: Design and Implementation of Moving Target Defense Techniques to Break the Cyber Kill Chain in IoT Devices; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, February 2023, Link
• [Master Thesis] Steven Näf: Design and Implementation of a Cooperative MTD Framework for IoT Devices; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, January 2023, Link
• [Master Thesis] Rinor Sefa: Design and Implementation of a Virtual File System for Hostbased Moving Target Defence in IoT Devices; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, October 2022, Link
• [Master Thesis] Timo Schenk: Optimizing MTD Deployment on IoT Devices using Reinforcement Learning; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, October 2022, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Nicolas Huber: Design and Implementation of an MTD Strategy Selection Agent using IoT Platform Metrics; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, September 2022, Link
• [Master Thesis] Flavia Fulea: Toward Collaborative and Cooperative Cybersecurity: A Survey on Approaches, Challenges, and Opportunities; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, August 2022, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] David Diener: Design and Implementation of a Database-to-Blockchain Data Gathering Solution for Cheese Tracking; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, August 2022, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Ramon Solo de Zaldivar: Creation of a Dataset Modeling the System Calls of Spectrum Sensors Affected by Malware; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, April 2022, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] David Stalder: Machine-learning based Detection of Malicious DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) Traffic Based on Packet Captures; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, April 2022, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Jordan Cedeño: Mitigating Cyberattacks Affecting Resource-constrained Devices Through Moving Target Defense (MTD) Mechanisms; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, April 2022, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Konstantin Moser: Intelligent and Behavioral-based Detection of Cryptominers in Resource-constrained Spectrum Sensors; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, April 2022, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Kyrill Hux: Design and Implementation of a Traffic Sinkhole for Cyberattack Analysis; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, March 2022, Link
• [Bachelor Thesis] Marion Dübendorfer: Distributed Analysis of Cyberattacks in a Collaborative Setting; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, March 2022, Link
• [Master Project] Sandro Padovan, Michael Nadig, Christian Birchler: DDoSGrid 3.0: Enabling the Real-time Processing and Analysis of Cyber Attacks Traffic; Universität Zürich, Communication Systems Group, Department of Informatics, Zürich, Switzerland, February 2022, Link