The newly created Edutec Prize was awarded to Dr. Daniel Schiffner, a leading supporter of the Edutec team. He has shown exceptional commitment to keeping the educational technologies up and running and restoring the systems after the cyber attack.
A Trailblazer in Education Technology
Dr. Daniel Schiffner serves as the Arbeitsbereichsleiter (Head of Department) for Bildungsinformatik (Educational Informatics) at the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education. His work focuses on leveraging technology to enhance teaching and learning processes. Dr. Schiffner’s expertise lies at the intersection of education, data science, and digital tools. In his position as head of the TBA Center, he also acts as a link between psychologists and computer scientists at the DIPF.
Mitigating the Consequences of the 2022 Cyberattack
In October 2022, the DIPF (Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education) fell victim to a cyberattack. Despite having robust security measures in place, the institute was compromised by a double extortion ransomware attack. Due to the existing security protocols, the entire DIPF IT infrastructure had to be shut down, thoroughly inspected and recreated. From the very beginning, Dr. Schiffner’s personal goal was to enable his colleagues to resume their activities and thus maintain scientific operations. Together with his team, he showed outstanding commitment in
His efforts include:
A complete makeover for IT systems: From the very beginning, Dr. Schiffner had not only a new IT infrastructure in mind, but also an improvement. This includes the newly introduced multi-factor authentication, the introduction of Gitlab as a team and task management tool, and the encapsulation of IT systems.
Recovery Strategies: When the systems went offline, Dr. Schiffner worked tirelessly to restore access to critical resources. This required, among other things, the ability to identify DIPF resources on the darknet and bypass the security barriers set up by the cyber attackers.
Community Support: Dr. Schiffner organized webinars and information sessions to educate his colleagues about how to behave in this challenging time. His goal was to empower his DIPF colleagues to protect themselves against digital threats.
The Edutec Award: A Milestone Achievement
The Edutec Award recognizes exceptional individuals who advance education through technology. Dr. Daniel Schiffner’s dedication, expertise, and commitment to safeguarding educational systems make him a worthy recipient of this inaugural award.
The award was created to honor inspiring people for the Edutec team, who made outstanding contributions. The whole Edutec staff served as a committee and aggreed on Dr. Daniel Schiffner.
We congratulate Dr. Schiffner on this remarkable achievement and look forward to further innovations in the field of educational technology.