What we do
Research
MATRIS Science Lab studies the resilience of critical infrastructure against hybrid threats, where natural hazards and cyber attacks interact and amplify each other. The University of Salzburg unit builds the mathematical and geospatial methods; the FH Salzburg unit applies them to the security testing of real infrastructure, starting with power grids.
The common challenge: hybrid threats
Increasing interdependencies, digitalisation and climate-driven extreme events create a complex attack surface for critical infrastructure. Disruptions can cascade quickly across power grids, communication systems and satellite-based services. Existing approaches largely treat natural and cyber hazards separately, which leaves systems vulnerable to their interactions, timing and amplification effects. MATRIS addresses these interactions jointly. The lab's flagship is the joint professorship in cybersecurity (Brückenprofessur) of the two institutions. AURELIA, which runs at both, is the roadmap to future projects.
University of Salzburg · Department of Computer Science
MATRIS – Complex, Secure and Resilient Systems
Fundamental research: models, methods and tools
Discrete-mathematical modelling of hybrid threats
New methods for modelling NaTech (natural hazard triggering technological disasters) and hybrid-threat scenarios, building on combinatorial designs, algorithms and optimisation.
Combinatorial security testing meets geospatial analytics
Combining combinatorial security testing with geospatial analytics and remote sensing: multi-hazard geospatial data, satellite observations and AI-based data extraction, together with the Department of Geoinformatics (Z_GIS).
Attack paths in cyber-physical systems
Attack-path analysis for cyber-physical systems and assessment of the resulting impacts on energy supply, logistics and communication networks.
Simulation and risk assessment
Long-term work on innovative simulation and risk-assessment approaches for energy providers, logistics operators, disaster-management authorities and technology partners.
FH Salzburg · Department of Information Technologies and Digitalisation
MATRIS – Resilience and Security Testing
Applied research: securing real infrastructure (research focus Industrial Informatics)
Hybrid threats to power grids
Power grids are turning into ICT-based smart grids, driven by growing energy consumption and distributed generation. The resulting interconnection of the cyber and physical domains creates new threats. We study how timed cyber attacks interact with natural-hazard events, including terrorist attacks and hybrid warfare, and how they can affect power infrastructure and worsen disasters.
Disaster risk reduction and management
Understanding how hybrid threats intensify existing challenges in disaster risk reduction and disaster management.
Resilient security testing
Combinatorial security testing of the technologies that critical infrastructure depends on: web technologies (interaction testing), internet and industrial protocols, hardware Trojan detection in chips, and quantum software implementations.
One method, two settings
Both units build on combinatorial testing, which gives mathematically guaranteed coverage of a system's input space with far fewer tests than exhaustive testing. The same idea turns into disaster and hybrid-threat scenarios. Our 2026 IEEE Security & Privacy article, "Combinatorial Security Testing — 10 Years Later", reviews a decade of this work.
Collaboration and transfer
Our research has a geographical focus on the federal state of Salzburg and beyond. AURELIA sets out the roadmap for future projects, identifying precise research foci and suitable company partners. Together with FH Salzburg, the lab contributes to the cybersecurity research and transfer centre FTZ CyberSec and supports regional companies and start-ups. Our strategic partners are the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Graz University of Technology and the State of Salzburg (Land Salzburg).
Interested in a collaboration, a thesis, or a joint project? Contact us.
Sources: AURELIA project descriptions in the research portals of the University of Salzburg and FH Salzburg.