IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
18 September 2022
Technology Innovation Institute (TII) - Abu Dhabi, UAE
Job PostingTechnology Innovation Institute (TII) is a publicly funded research institute, based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It is home to a diverse community of leading scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and researchers from across the globe, transforming problems and roadblocks into pioneering research and technology prototypes that help move society ahead.
Cryptography Research Center
In our connected digital world, secure and reliable cryptography is the foundation of digital information security and data integrity. We address the world’s most pressing cryptographic questions. Our work covers post-quantum cryptography, lightweight cryptography, cloud encryption schemes, secure protocols, quantum cryptographic technologies and cryptanalysis.
Position: Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Skills required for the job
Qualifications
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Mehdi Messaoudi - Talent Acquisition Manager
mehdi.messaoudi@tii.ae
16 September 2022
Benoît Libert, Ky Nguyen, Alain Passelègue
ePrint ReportIn this paper, we propose the first two instantiations of CALBO-TDFs based on standard assumptions. Our constructions are based on the LWE assumption with a sub-exponential approximation factor and on the DCR assumption, respectively, and circumvent the use of indistinguishability obfuscation by relying on lossy modes and trapdoor mechanisms enabled by these assumptions.
Federico Canale, Tim Güneysu, Gregor Leander, Jan Thoma, Yosuke Todo, Rei Ueno
ePrint ReportA large variety of randomized cache architectures has been proposed. However, the actual randomization function received little attention and is often neglected in these proposals. Since the randomization operates directly on the critical path of the cache lookup, the function needs to have extremely low latency. At the same time, attackers must not be able to bypass the randomization which would nullify the security benefit of the randomized mapping. In this paper we propose \cipher (\underline{S}ecure \underline{CA}che \underline{R}andomization \underline{F}unction), the first dedicated cache randomization cipher which achieves low latency and is cryptographically secure in the cache attacker model. The design methodology for this dedicated cache cipher enters new territory in the field of block ciphers with a small 10-bit block length and heavy key-dependency in few rounds.
George Lu, Brent Waters
ePrint ReportOur work explores the problem of sampling from discrete Gaussian (and related) distributions in a manner that they can be programmed into random oracles. We make the following contributions:
-We provide a definitional framework for our results. We say that a sampling algorithm $\mathsf{Sample}$ for a distribution is explainable if there exists an algorithm $\mathsf{Explain}$ where, for a $x$ in the domain, we have that $\mathsf{Explain}(x) \rightarrow r \in \{0,1\}^n$ such that $\mathsf{Sample}(r)=x$. Moreover, if $x$ is sampled from $\mathcal{D}$ the explained distribution is statistically close to choosing $r$ uniformly at random. We consider a variant of this definition that allows the statistical closeness to be a "precision parameter'' given to the $\mathsf{Explain}$ algorithm. We show that sampling algorithms which satisfy our `explainability' property can be programmed as a random oracle.
-We provide a simple algorithm for explaining \emph{any} sampling algorithm that works over distributions with polynomial sized ranges. This includes discrete Gaussians with small standard deviations.
-We show how to transform a (not necessarily explainable) sampling algorithm $\mathsf{Sample}$ for a distribution into a new $\mathsf{Sample}'$ that is explainable. The requirements for doing this is that (1) the probability density function is efficiently computable (2) it is possible to efficiently uniformly sample from all elements that have a probability density above a given threshold $p$, showing the equivalence of random oracles to these distributions and random oracles to uniform bitstrings. This includes a large class of distributions, including all discrete Gaussians.
-A potential drawback of the previous approach is that the transformation requires an additional computation of the density function. We provide a more customized approach that shows the Miccancio-Walter discrete Gaussian sampler is explainable as is. This suggests that other discrete Gaussian samplers in a similar vein might also be explainable as is.
Hao Guo, Jintai Ding
ePrint ReportProtocol Labs, Remote
Job PostingClosing date for applications:
Contact: Luke Sandquist
More information: https://boards.greenhouse.io/protocollabs/jobs/4616824004
UNSW, Sydney, Australia
Job Posting- Post Quantum Cryptography for Blockchains
- Towards a Quantum-Safe Internet
Prospective students are expected to have strong mathematical inclination and strong background in data structures, discrete mathematics and algorithms. Candidates with knowledge of cryptography (such as completion of undergraduate/graduate course or research project) will be preferred.
Open to students who have completed a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics or a related discipline. Candidates in their final year of study are welcome to apply.
SQA Deadline: September 26, 2022.
UNSW Deadline: September 30, 2022.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Please contact Dr. Sushmita Ruj (Email: Sushmita.ruj@unsw.edu.au) with your CV and transcripts if you are interested.
More information: https://www.sydneyquantum.org/program/sqa-phd-scholarships/
Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
Job PostingClosing date for applications:
Contact: Eleni Diamanti, Laboratoire d’Informatique de Sorbonne Université (LIP6)
Inria of the University of Rennes
Job PostingClosing date for applications:
Contact: Davide Frey
More information: https://recrutement.inria.fr/public/classic/fr/offres/2022-05366
QuSoft / University of Amsterdam
Job PostingThe Theory of Computer Science (TCS) group at the Informatics Institute (IvI) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is looking for an excellent candidate for a fully funded PhD position as part of QSI (Quantum-Safe Internet), a Marie Curie Innovative Training Network (MSCA-ITN). The QSI network involves top-ranking partner universities from France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, the UK, and Switzerland, as well as industrial partners.
You will conduct research at the intersection of quantum and post-quantum cryptography and publish/ present the results at top venues for research in crypto/ IT Security. You will be supervised by Prof. Christian Schaffner and Dr. Florian Speelman.
We are looking for a candidate with:- a MSc in computer science, mathematics, or a related field;
- strong academic performance in university-level courses related to cryptography, IT security, theoretical CS, or mathematics;
- professional command of English and good presentation skills;
- compliance with the MSCA-ITN mobility rule: you must not have resided or carried out your main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the Netherlands for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before your recruitment date.
- Full-time employment for the duration of the PhD
- A well-rounded training offered by the QSI network, covering a range of topics related to secure communications in the quantum era, as well as complementary training intended to enhance your personal development.
- Generous travel budget that allows for, e.g., exposure to different sectors via planned placements and attendance to summer schools.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Prof. Christian Schaffner
More information: https://vacatures.uva.nl/UvA/job/PhD-Quantum-Cryptography/754463502/
George Mason University
Job PostingThe George Mason University and Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI), within the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), invites applications for an Associate/Full Professor of Cybersecurity and Commonwealth Cyber Initiative Fellow position. GMU has a strong institutional commitment to the achievement of excellence and diversity among its faculty and staff, and strongly encourages candidates to apply who will enrich Mason’s academic and culturally inclusive environment.
About the Position:
The incumbent will conduct research at GMU and as part of the Northern Virginia Node of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, and in partnership with researchers from the Coastal Node of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative and Old Dominion University. Successful candidates will have access to the faculty and facilities of both GMU and Old Dominion University to enable their success.
Responsibilities:
Serve as the director of the interdisciplinary research effort between GMU, Old Dominion University and the Northern Virginia and Coastal Nodes of the CCI;
Leverage university-level strategic priorities in cybersecurity research to lead transformative growth and impact the research portfolio, and to further encourage and foster new and existing collaborations with academic, industrial, and governmental institutions in Northern Virginia, Coastal Virginia and the greater Washington, D.C., area;
Accelerate the growth of high-quality academic programs, facilitate interdisciplinary research initiatives, and broaden the scope and focus areas of research in Mason with significant potential for commercialization.
Required Qualifications:
Doctorate in CS, ECE, IT, or a related field;
Eligible for a tenured appointment as associate or full professor;
Outstanding cybersecurity research and publication record;
Commitment to excellence in both graduate and undergraduate education
significant leadership experience
US citizen
Closing date for applications:
Contact: More information: https://jobs.chronicle.com/job/37290398/associatefull-professor-of-cybersecurity-and-commonwealth-cyber-initiative-fellow?
15 September 2022
Diana Ghinea, Fabian Kaczmarczyck, Jennifer Pullman, Julien Cretin, Stefan Kölbl, Rafael Misoczki, Jean-Michel Picod, Luca Invernizzi, Elie Bursztein
ePrint ReportIn this work, we address these challenges by introducing a scheme to upgrade the digital signatures used by security keys to PQC, focusing on both its theoretical and practical aspects. Specifically, we introduce a hybrid digital signature scheme based on two building blocks: a classically-secure scheme, ECDSA, and a post-quantum secure one, Dilithium. Our hybrid scheme maintains the guarantees of each underlying building block even if the other one is broken, thus being resistant to classical and quantum attacks. Additionally, our hybrid scheme ensures that an adversary cannot derive ECDSA or Dilithium signatures that this authentication protocol considers valid. On the practical aspect, we experimentally show that our hybrid signature scheme can successfully execute on current security keys, even though secure PQC schemes are known to require substantial resources.
We publish an open-source implementation of our scheme at http://anonymous.4open.science/r/OpenSK-D018/ so that other researchers can reproduce our results on a nRF52840 development kit.
Ehsan Ebrahimi
ePrint ReportWe extend the result to the quantum random oracle model (QROM) and show that OAEP+ is IND-CCA secure in QROM if the underlying trapdoor permutation is quantum one-way.
Matthew Green, Mathias Hall-Andersen, Eric Hennenfent, Gabriel Kaptchuk, Benjamin Perez, Gijs Van Laer
ePrint ReportAli Şah Özcan
ePrint ReportThis paper presents an optimized and highly parallelized GPU library to accelerate the BFV scheme. This library includes state-of-the-art implementations of Number Theoretic Transform (NTT) and inverse NTT that minimize the GPU kernel function calls. It makes an efficient use of the GPU memory hierarchy and computes 128 NTT operations for ring dimension of $2^{14}$ only in $176.1~\mu s$ on RTX~3060Ti GPU. To the best of our knowlede, this is the fastest implementation in the literature. The library also improves the performance of the homomorphic operations of the BFV scheme. Although the library can be independently used, it is also fully integrated with the Microsoft SEAL library, which is a well-known HE library that also implements the BFV scheme. For one ciphertext multiplication, for the ring dimension $2^{14}$ and the modulus bit size of $438$, our GPU implementation offers $\mathbf{63.4}$ times speedup over the SEAL library running on a high-end CPU. The library compares favorably with other state-of-the-art GPU implementations of NTT and the BFV operations. Finally, we implement a privacy-preserving application that classifies encrpyted genome data for tumor types and achieve speedups of $42.98$ and $5.7$ over a CPU implementations using single and 16 threads, respectively. Our results indicate that GPU implementations can facilitate the deployment of homomorphic cryptographic libraries in real world privacy preserving applications.
Wonseok Choi, Hwigyeom Kim, Jooyoung Lee, Yeongmin Lee
ePrint ReportJuan Garay, Aggelos Kiayias, Yu Shen
ePrint ReportIn this work, we present the first proof-of-work (PoW)-based permissionless clock synchronization protocol. Our construction assumes a public setup (e.g., a CRS) and relies on an honest majority of computational power that, for the first time, is described in a fine-grain timing model that does not utilize a global clock that exports the current time to all parties. As a secondary result of independent interest, our protocol gives rise to the first PoW-based ledger consensus protocol that does not rely on an external clock for the time-stamping of transactions and adjustment of the PoW difficulty.
Azam Soleimanian
ePrint ReportJiahui He, Kai Hu, Bart Preneel, Meiqin Wang
ePrint ReportYou Lyu, Shengli Liu, Shuai Han, Dawu Gu
ePrint ReportWe propose a generic construction of robust PPAKE from key encapsulation mechanism (KEM), digital signature (SIG), message authentication code (MAC), pseudo-random generator (PRG) and symmetric encryption (SE). By instantiating KEM, MAC, PRG from the DDH assumption and SIG from the CDH assumption, we obtain a specific robust PPAKE scheme in the standard model, which enjoys forward security for session keys, explicit authentication and forward privacy for user identities. Thanks to the robustness of our PPAKE, the number of broadcast messages per run and the computational complexity per user are constant, and in particular, independent of the number of users in the system.