Michael Waidner is the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Informationtechnology (Fraunhofer SIT) and Chair Professor for Security in IT at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. Together with Prof. Dr. Johannes Buchmann he is leading the Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED).

He received his PhD from the University of Karlsruhe (now known as KIT) in 1991. In 1994 he joined the IBM Zurich Research Lab in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, where he was responsible for the research activities in the areas of IT security and privacy. He was one of the initiators of the Zurich Information Security Center (ZISC) at the ETH Zurich. In 2006 he moved to IBM in New York. Until 2010 he was an IBM Distinguished Engineer and the Chief Technology Officer for Security, responsible for the technical security strategy and architecture of the IBM Corporation. In 2010 he left IBM and came to Darmstadt.

Michael Waidner authored more than 130 scientific publications and is inventor of more than 20 patents. He is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Scientist.