Michael Backes

Michael Backes is the founding director and CEO of the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, a leading institution in cybersecurity and privacy. He is also a professor at Saarland University and director of the CISPA-Stanford Center. His research spans trustworthy machine learning, secure software systems, and privacy-preserving technologies, with over 300 publications in top venues.

Backes holds a professorship at Saarland University since 2005 and was a Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (2007–2017). He earned his doctorate and has been recognized with numerous honors, including an honorary doctorate from Université de Lorraine.

His research focuses on trustworthy information processing, particularly in machine learning and AI security. He investigates privacy-preserving methods, secure model training, adversarial robustness, and ethical AI. His work combines theoretical foundations with practical applications in medical data privacy, mobile security, and large language models.

The recent publications highlight a strong trend in securing AI systems—especially large language models—against data leakage, prompt theft, misuse, and bias. His group develops benchmarks (e.g., HateBench, MGTBench), analyzes model memorization, and designs privacy-preserving techniques, reflecting a deep engagement with emerging AI security challenges.

• ACM Fellow (2023)
• IEEE Fellow (2018)
• ERC Synergy Grant (2014)
• ERC Starting Grant (2009)
• Karl-Heinz Beckurts Prize (2019)
• MIT TR35 Award (2009)
• NSA Cybersecurity Research Award (2017)
• IBM and Microsoft Research Awards

Backes has mentored over 30 PhD students and postdocs, many of whom now hold faculty or leadership positions globally. He leads a large research group at CISPA and runs a competitive postdoc fellowship program. His team receives substantial funding from EU and German agencies. He actively promotes technology transfer and public engagement in cybersecurity.

He leads the AI Security and Privacy research group at CISPA, which includes current members such as Xinyue Shen, Yang Zhang, and Wenhao Wang. The group collaborates internationally, notably with Stanford University, and operates at the intersection of systems, AI, and security research.