Waidner studied
computer science at the
University of Karlsruhe and received his
doctorate in computer science in 1991. The title of his
dissertation was "Byzantine distribution without cryptographic assumptions despite any number of errors". From 1994 to 2006, he headed research in IT security and data protection at
IBM Research - Zurich and was one of the initiators of the Zurich Information Security Center at
ETH Zurich. He then moved to IBM in New York, where he was IBM Chief Technology Officer for Security and chairman of the IBM Security Architecture Board until September 2010. Since 2010, Waidner is professor at the department of computer science of the
Technische Universität Darmstadt and director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in
Darmstadt. Waidner is also director of ATHENE, the largest research institute for
IT security in Europe. He is a visiting professor at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2017, Waidner has also been
chief digital officer of
Darmstadt. ==Awards and honors==