BTU overview Close BTU overview
Homepage
Close
Faculty 1
Chair of IT Security Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andriy Panchenko

Academic Staff

Dr.-Ing. Asya Mitseva
Junior Research Group Leader of the Young Investigator Group "COSYS - Control Systems and Cyber Security Lab"
VG 1C, room 2.17

T: +49 (0) 355 69 2615
F: +49 (0) 355 69 2127
asya.mitseva(at)b-tu.de

Office Hours

To schedule an appointment, please contact Ms. Mitseva in advance via email with your request.

If you are interested in a student job, please send an e-mail to: itsec-jobs.informatik(at)lists.b-tu.de

If you are interested in a topic for your thesis, please send an e-mail to: fg-itsec-thesis.informatik(at)lists.b-tu.de

About me

Currently, I am a researcher at the Chair of IT Security. I received my Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and my Master's degree in Computer Science from RWTH Aachen University, Germany. I also wrote my bachelor thesis at the University of Twente, the Netherlands, and completed a six-month internship at the University of Luxembourg at the end of my master studies. After my studies, I continued to work at the University of Luxembourg for four years. Recently, I have completed my doctoral studies focusing on assessing real-world user information leakages and designing countermeasures against them.

Research Interests

My research focuses on anonymous communication and privacy-enhancing technologies (especially Tor), where I evaluate the impact of different attacks and aim to design and analyze efficient countermeasures. I am also interested in evaluating the application of machine learning for traffic analysis to sensitive data flows (e.g., website fingerprinting against privacy-aware users) as well as anomaly detection in critical infrastructures.

Teaching

I teach both practical master courses “Study Project: Adversarial Machine Learning” and “Cyber Security Lab (Ethical Hacking)”, and coordinate our seminars “Research Seminar: Advanced Topics in Network and System Security” and “Undergraduate Research Seminar: Basics of System and Network Security”. I am also responsible for the exercise “Secure Cyber-Physical Systems”. In addition, I regularly supervise several seminar students as well as bachelor and master theses.

If you are interested in a student job, please send an e-mail to: itsec-jobs.informatik(at)lists.b-tu.de

If you are interested in a topic for your thesis, please send an e-mail to: fg-itsec-thesis.informatik(at)lists.b-tu.de

Projects

I am currently involved with the Control Systems and Cyber Security Lab (COSYS) as part of the Energy Innovation Center (EIC), which addresses cybersecurity challenges in the transition toward secure multi-energy systems. My work in this project focuses on setting up the Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) laboratory and the design and development of novel artificial intelligence (AI)-based network attack detection methods for critical infrastructures.

Publications
Open list in UBICO

Whitelisting als Allheilmittel : über die Grenzen der Anomalieerkennung in industriellen Steuerungssystemen

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Lewandowsky, Marco, Panchenko, Andriy
Editor(s)
Skwarek, Volker, Wöhnert, Kai Hendrik, Kaven, Sascha, Wendzel, Steffen
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2026
Publisher name
Bonn : Gesellschaft für Informatik
Steuerungssysteme; Datenverkehrsmuster; Datensätze; Intrusion-Detection-Systeme
Source
Sicherheit 2026 : Sicherheit, Schutz und Zuverlässigkeit, 17.-19. März 2026, Hamburg : proceedings, S. 103 - 114
URL
https://dl.gi.de/items/7b5e1e96-dad3-4843-aca7-77593cd8ddde
DOI
https://doi.org/10.18420/sicherheit2026_09
GI-Edition. Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI)) ; P379

State of affairs in online user privacy : assessing real-world user information leakages and designing effective and practical countermeasures

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya
Type
doctoralthesis
Year of publication
2025
Publisher name
Cottbus-Senftenberg : Brandenburgische Technische Universität
Anonyme Kommunikation; Border Gateway Protocol (BGP; Datenschutz im Internet; Datenverkehrsanalyse; Onion routing; Tor network; Traffic analysis; Website fingerprinting; Website fingerprinting defenses
DOI
https://doi.org/10.26127/BTUOpen-7214

Poster: characterization of dominant and specific network patterns in industrial control systems

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Lewandowsky, Marco, Panchenko, Andriy
Type
image
Year of publication
2025
Publisher name
Piscataway, NJ : IEEE
Industrial Control Systems; Traffic Patterns
ISBN
979-8-3315-7842-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/NCA67271.2025.00059

Stop, don't click here anymore: boosting website fingerprinting by considering sets of subpages

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Panchenko, Andriy
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2024
Source
Proceedings of the 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Sec 2024), Philadelphia, PA, USA, August 14-16, 2024, S. 4139 - 4156
ISBN
978-1-939133-44-1
URL
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/usenixsecurity24-mitseva.pdf
https://dblp.org/rec/conf/uss/Mitseva024.html

Security and Performance Implications of BGP Rerouting-resistant Guard Selection Algorithms for Tor

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Alexandrova, Marharyta, Panchenko, Andriy
Type
Scientific Article ref.
Year of publication
2023
BGP routing attacks; Tor; Onion routing; Privacy; Traffic analysis
Source
Computers and Security
Volume
132
ISSN
1872-6208
0167-4048
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2023.103374

Challenges and Pitfalls in Generating Representative ICS Datasets in Cyber Security Research

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Thierse, Paul, Hoffmann, Harald, Er, Devran, Panchenko, Andriy
Editor(s)
Katsikas, Sokratis
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2023
Publisher name
Cham : Springer International Publishing
Source
Computer Security, ESORICS 2022 International WorkshopsCyberICPS 2022, SECPRE 2022, SPOSE 2022, CPS4CIP 2022, CDT&SECOMANE 2022, EIS 2022, and SecAssure 2022 Copenhagen, Denmark, September 26–30, 2022, Revised Selected Papers, S. 379 - 397
ISBN
978-3-031-25459-8
978-3-031-25460-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25460-4_22
Lecture notes in computer science ; 13785

POSTER: How Dangerous is My Click? Boosting Website Fingerprinting By Considering Sequences of Webpages

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Pennekamp, Jan, Lohmöller, Johannes, Ziemann, Torsten, Hoerchner, Carl, Wehrle, Klaus, Panchenko, Andriy
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2021
Publisher name
New York : ACM Press
Source
Proceedings of the 28th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ACM CCS 2021), Seoul, Virtual Event, South Korea, November 2021, S. 2411 - 2413
ISBN
978-1-4503-8454-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3460120.3485347

WhisperChord: Scalable and Secure Node Discovery for Overlay Networks

Author(s)
Panchenko, Andriy, Mitseva, Asya, Knabe, Sara
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2021
Publisher name
IEEE
Source
IEEE 46th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN), Edmonton, AB, Canada, 4-7 Oct. 2021, S. 170 - 177
ISBN
978-1-6654-1886-7
978-1-6654-4800-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/LCN52139.2021.9525008

GuardedGossip: Secure and Anonymous Node Discovery in Untrustworthy Networks

Author(s)
Panchenko, Andriy, Mitseva, Asya, Ziemann, Torsten, Hering, Till
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2021
Publisher name
Cham : Springer
Node lookup; DHT; Tor; Onion routing; Anonymity
Source
Security and Privacy in Communication Networks : 17th EAI International Conference, SecureComm 2021, Virtual Event, September 6–9, 2021, Proceedings, Part I, S. 123 - 143
ISBN
978-3-030-90018-2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90019-9_7
Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

Analyzing PeerFlow - A Bandwidth Estimation System for Untrustworthy Environments

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Engel, Thomas, Panchenko, Andriy
Editor(s)
Reinhardt, Delphine, Langweg, Hanno, Witt, Bernhard C., Fischer, Mathias
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2020
Publisher name
Bonn : Gesellschaft für Informatik
Source
Sicherheit 2020 : Sicherheit, Schutz und Zuverlässigkeit ; Konferenzband der 10. Jahrestagung des Fachbereichs Sicherheit der Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI) ; 17.- 20. März 2020 in Göttingen, S. 29 - 40
ISBN
978-3-88579-695-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.18420/sicherheit2020_02
GI-Edition / Proceedings ; Volume P-301
Lecture notes in informatics

Security and Performance Implications of BGP Rerouting-resistant Guard Selection Algorithms for Tor

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Aleksandrova, Marharyta, Engel, Thomas, Panchenko, Andriy
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2020
Publisher name
Cham : Springer
Source
ICT Systems Security and Privacy Protection : 35th IFIP TC 11 International Conference, SEC 2020, Maribor, Slovenia, September 21–23, 2020, S. 219 - 233
ISBN
978-3-030-58201-2
978-3-030-58200-5
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58201-2_15
IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology book series IFIPAICT ; volume 580

TrafficSliver: Fighting Website Fingerprinting Attacks with Traffic Splitting

Author(s)
De la Cadena, Wladimir, Mitseva, Asya, Hiller, Jens, Pennekamp, Jan, Reuter, Sebastian, Filter, Julian, Engel, Thomas, Wehrle, Klaus, Panchenko, Andriy
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2020
Publisher name
New York : Association for Computing Machinery
Traffic Analysis; Website Fingerprinting; Privacy; Anonymous Communication; Onion Routing; Web Privacy
Source
CCS '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, October 2020, S. 1971 - 1985
ISBN
978-1-4503-7089-9
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3372297.3423351

Multipathing Traffic to Reduce Entry Node Exposure in Onion Routing

Author(s)
Pennekamp, Jan, Hiller, Jens, Reuter, Sebastian, De la Cadena, Wladimir, Mitseva, Asya, Henze, Martin, Engel, Thomas, Wehrle, Klaus, Panchenko, Andriy
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2019
Publisher name
IEEE Press
Source
Proceedings of the 27th annual IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (Poster) (IEEE ICNP 2019), Chicago, Illinois, USA, October 2019
ISBN
978-1-7281-2700-2
978-1-7281-2701-9
URL
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8888029
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICNP.2019.8888029

POSTER: Traffic Splitting to Counter Website Fingerprinting

Author(s)
De La Cadena, Wladimir, Mitseva, Asya, Pennekamp, Jan, Hiller, Jens, Lanze, Fabian, Engel, Thomas, Wehrle, Klaus, Panchenko, Andriy
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2019
Publisher name
New York : ACM Press
Source
CCS '19 Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, London, UK, November 11 - 15, 2019., S. 2533 - 2535
ISBN
978-1-4503-6747-9
URL
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3319535.3363249
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3319535.3363249

Analysis of Multi-path Onion Routing-based Anonymization Networks

Author(s)
De la Cadena, Wladimir, Kaiser, Daniel, Mitseva, Asya, Panchenko, Andriy, Engel, Thomas
Editor(s)
Foley, Simon N.
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2019
Publisher name
Frankfurt am Main : Springer
Source
Data and Applications Security and Privacy XXXIII : 33rd Annual IFIP WG 11.3 Conference, DBSec 2019, Charleston, SC, USA, July 15–17, 2019, Proceedings, S. 240 - 258
ISBN
978-3-030-22478-3
978-3-030-22479-0
URL
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-030-22479-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22479-0_13
Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series ; volume 11559

The state of affairs in BGP security: A survey of attacks and defenses

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Panchenko, Andriy, Engel, Thomas
Type
Scientific Article ref.
Year of publication
2018
Source
Computer Communications, S. 45 - 60
Volume
124
ISSN
0140-3664
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2018.04.013

Analysis of Fingerprinting Techniques for Tor Hidden Services

Author(s)
Panchenko, Andriy, Mitseva, Asya, Henze, Martin, Lanze, Fabian, Engel, Thomas, Wehrle, Klaus
Type
conference publication
Year of publication
2017
Publisher name
New York, NY : ACM
Source
WPES '17 Proceedings of the 2017 on Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society, Dallas, Texas, USA, October 2017, S. 165 - 175
ISBN
978-1-4503-5175-1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3139550.3139564

POSTER: Fingerprinting Tor Hidden Services

Author(s)
Mitseva, Asya, Panchenko, Andriy, Lanze, Fabian, Henze, Martin, Engel, Thomas, Wehrle, Klaus
Type
Conference Proceeding refering
Year of publication
2016
Publisher name
New York : ACM
Source
In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS '16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, S. 1766 - 1768
ISBN
978-1-4503-4139-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/2976749.2989054