IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
03 July 2023
Gauri Gupta, Krithika Ramesh, Anwesh Bhattacharya, Divya Gupta, Rahul Sharma, Nishanth Chandran, Rijurekha Sen
30 June 2023
CEA Grenoble, France
Closing date for applications:
Contact: PhD Nicolas BELLEVILLE, nicolas.belleville@cea.fr
More information: https://www.hipeac.net/jobs/14099/phd-combination-of-software-countermeasures-against-side-channel-attacks/
University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
The CryptoLux group of the University of Luxembourg has a vacancy for a post-doctoral researcher in the area of security/privacy of blockchains and smart contracts. The successful candidate will contribute to a research project entitled Advanced Cryptography for Finance and Privacy (CryptoFin), which is funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR). Starting in September 2023, CryptoFin will run over a period of 3 years and be carried out in collaboration with the cryptography teams of Stanford University and Ethereum foundation. The mission of the CryptoFin project is to develop innovative solutions for some of the most pressing research problems in the blockchain domain, especially in the context of layer-2 protocols for off-chain transactions and the design of advanced cryptographic techniques like verifiable delay functions, proof-of-X systems with special features, and new MPC/SNARK-friendly primitives.
Candidates must hold a Ph.D. degree in cryptography, IT security, or a related field. Preference will be given to candidates with a strong publication record that includes at least one paper at an IACR conference/workshop or one of the top-4 security conferences. Experience in blockchains and/or smart contracts is a plus. Candidates with an interest to conduct research in one of the following areas are particularly encouraged to apply:
- Applied cryptography (especially design/analysis of symmetric cryptosystems)
- Cryptofinance and cryptoeconomics
- Privacy and anonymity on the Internet
The position is initially offered for 1 year, but an extension by 2 years is possible. The University of Luxembourg offers excellent working conditions and a highly competitive salary. Interested candidates are invited to send their application by email to Prof. Alex Biryukov before July 20, 2023 (early submission is encouraged). The application material should contain a cover letter explaining the candidate's research interests, a CV (incl. photo), a list of publications, scans of diploma certificates, and contact details of 3 references.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Prof. Alex Biryukov (alex.biryukov@uni.lu)
More information: https://cryptolux.org/index.php/Vacancies
University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
The CryptoLux group of the University of Luxembourg has two vacancies for Ph.D. positions in the area of security/privacy of blockchains and smart contracts. The successful candidates will contribute to a research project entitled Advanced Cryptography for Finance and Privacy (CryptoFin), which is funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR). Starting in September 2023, CryptoFin will run over a period of 3 years and be carried out in collaboration with the cryptography teams of Stanford University and Ethereum foundation. The mission of the CryptoFin project is to develop innovative solutions for some of the most pressing research problems in the blockchain domain, especially in the context of layer-2 protocols for off-chain transactions and the design of advanced cryptographic techniques like verifiable delay functions, proof-of-X systems with special features, and new MPC/SNARK-friendly primitives.
Candidates must hold an M.Sc. degree (or earn an M.Sc. degree before September 2023) in computer science, mathematics, or a related field. Experience in blockchains and/or smart contracts is a plus. Candidates with an interest to conduct research in one of the following areas are particularly encouraged to apply:
- Applied cryptography (especially design/analysis of symmetric cryptosystems)
- Cryptofinance and cryptoeconomics
- Privacy and anonymity on the Internet
Both positions are fully funded and initially offered for 3 years, but an extension to a 4th year is possible. The University of Luxembourg offers excellent working conditions and a highly competitive salary. Interested candidates are invited to send their application by email to Prof. Alex Biryukov before July 20, 2023 (early submission is encouraged). The application material should contain a cover letter explaining the candidate's research interests, a CV (incl. photo), scans of diploma certificates, and contact details of 3 references.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Prof. Alex Biryukov (alex.biryukov@uni.lu)
More information: https://cryptolux.org/index.php/Vacancies
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
The newly stablished Cyber Security group is one of the core groups forming the faculty of Computer Science in the Technische Universität Darmstadt and National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity (ATHENE). The research focus of the group is on the security of implementations. A large part of our research is dedicated to hardware security, protection against physical attacks (side-channel analysis and fault-injection attacks), security analysis of real-world systems particularly internet of things, and efficient hardware and software implementation of cryptographic primitives. This includes various implementation platforms like ASICs, FPGAs, and micro-processors.
The group is looking for excellent B.Sc. and M.Sc. graduates with outstanding grades and degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, and mathematics. In addition, we are looking for outstanding postdoctoral candidates from these fields. Initially, we offer three-year fully funded positions for B.Sc. and M.Sc. graduates. The expectation is to work towards a doctorate. Postdoctoral positions are initially offered a 2-year contract. Both PhD and Postdoctoral positions are subject to extensions. The salary will be according to the remuneration group E 13 TV-L (full time).
Our offerings:- Excellent research environment with award-winning scientists,
- Open team culture,
- Programs designed to support parents,
- Support measures for women in IT security,
- Excellent support for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers,
- Opportunities for academic and professional development,
- Budget for courses, conferences, equipment and international exchange
Are you interested? Please send your complete application documents in one single pdf file. The required documents are: Curriculum Vitae, transcript of records of BSc., transcript of records of MSc. (if applicable), two reference names (supervisors or other researchers with whom you worked).
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Amir Moradi (amir.moradi@rub.de)
SandboxAQ; Remote, Europe
We have a postdoc position available at SandboxAQ[1]. We are looking for people broadly interested in post-quantum cryptography. The position is remote in Europe but we have funds to allow travel to meet other team members. The position is initially for one year, but with the option to extend it to up to 3 years, on mutual agreement.
You can learn more about what we’ve been doing so far by checking out our publications page [2] or the individual DBPL pages of our permanent researchers:
- Carlos Aguilar Melchor (PQC Team) https://dblp.uni-trier.de/pid/71/4606.html
- Martin Albrecht (PQC Team) https://dblp.uni-trier.de/pid/92/7397.html
- Nina Bindel (PQC Team) https://dblp.uni-trier.de/pid/167/3021.html
- Nicolas Gama (Privacy Team) https://dblp.uni-trier.de/pid/49/4575.html
- Sandra Guasch (Privacy Team) https://dblp.uni-trier.de/pid/86/8292.html
- James Howe (PQC Team) https://dblp.uni-trier.de/pid/163/8680.html
- David Joseph (PQC Team) https://dblp.uni-trier.de/pid/27/884.html
We are committed to creating an inclusive culture where we have zero tolerance for discrimination. We invest in our employees' personal and professional growth.
To apply, submit an application at https://www.sandboxaq.com/careers-list?gh_jid=4914493004 Please submit your application by 15 July.
[1] https://www.sandboxaq.com/ [2] https://pub.sandboxaq.com/
Closing date for applications:
Contact:
- Martin Albrecht <martin.albrecht@sandboxquantum.com>
- Nina Bindel <nina.bindel@sandboxquantum.com>
More information: https://www.sandboxaq.com/careers-list?gh_jid=4914493004
Chair of IT Security at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg
Position is limited to 3 years, full time, with possibility for extension.
Tasks:- Active research in the area of intrusion detection systems (IDS) for critical infrastructures, secure cyber-physical systems, and artificial intelligence / machine learning for traffic analysis
- Implementation and evaluation of new algorithms and methods
- Cooperation and knowledge transfer with industrial partners
- Publication of scientific results
- Assistance with teaching
- Master’s degree (or equivalent) and PhD degree (only for PostDocs) in Computer Science or related disciplines
- Strong interest in IT security and/or networking and distributed systems
- Knowledge of at least one programming language (C++, Java, etc.) and one scripting language (Perl, Python, etc.) or strong willingness to quickly learn new programming languages
- Linux/Unix skills
- Knowledge of data mining, machine learning, statistics and result visualization concepts is of advantage
- Excellent working knowledge of English; German is of advantage
- Excellent communication skills
We value diversity and therefore welcome all applications – regardless of gender, nationality, ethnic and social background, religion/belief, disability, age, sexual orientation, and identity. The BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg strives for a balanced gender relation in all employee groups. Applicants with disabilities will be given preferential treatment if they are equally qualified.
Applications containing the following documents:- A detailed Curriculum Vitae
- Transcript of records from your Master studies
- An electronic version of your Master thesis, if possible should be sent in a single PDF file as soon as possible, but not later than 09.07.2023 at itsec-jobs.informatik@lists.b-tu.de.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: For more information about the vacant position please contact Prof. A. Panchenko (E-Mail: itsec-jobs.informatik@lists.b-tu.de)
More information: https://www.b-tu.de/en/fg-it-sicherheit
QuSoft / University of Amsterdam
Are you fascinated by security in theory and/or practice? Are you willing to take on the challenge of securing the next generation of computer systems and networks? Do you like to work in a team of young researchers? Join our dynamic team as a Postdoctoral Researcher and contribute to ground-breaking research at the forefront of quantum technology!
Quantum technologies are advancing at an unprecedented pace. On one hand, the progress in developing quantum computers poses a significant threat to our security infrastructure, particularly concerning public-key cryptography. On the other hand, the integration of quantum communication and quantum data into our networks presents novel opportunities that can enhance security functionalities. However, at present, quantum components predominantly exist in experimental stages, and their security requires in-depth study and assessment.
Among the prominent applications of quantum networks is quantum key distribution (QKD), which theoretically offers superior security guarantees compared to classical cryptographic schemes. However, does the utilization of QKD truly provide tangible benefits over post-quantum cryptography? In the realistic context of trusted-node QKD networks, what kind of security guarantees can be proven depending on the deployed key-management system?
At a broader level, this postdoc position aims to investigate the advantages of exploiting quantum effects within the domain of security and explore the integration of quantum and classical security guarantees both in theory and practice.
The fully funded postdoc position will be within the Theory of Computer Science (TCS) group but will be carried out in close collaboration with researchers at QuSoft. The position is a part of the Quantum Delta NL growth fund project CAT-2, which focuses on the development of a national quantum network, and it will likely involve collaboration with the experimental and theoretical partners of the CAT-2 project.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Christian Schaffner
More information: https://vacatures.uva.nl/UvA/job/PD/773632702/
29 June 2023
Yongha Son, Jinhyuck Jeong
In this work, we suggest new efficient proposals for circuit-PSI tailored for unbalanced inputs, which feature {\emph{zero}} small set holder side storage, and comparable online phase performance to the previous work. At the technical core, we use homomorphic encryption (HE) based {\emph{plain}} PSI protocols of Cong \textit{et al.} (CCS'21), with several technically non-trivial arguments on algorithm and security.
We demonstrate the superiority of our proposals in several input set sizes by an implementation. As a representative example, for input sets of size $2^{24}$ and $2^{12}$, our proposals require {\emph{zero}} storage on the small set holder whereas Lepoint \textit{et al.} requires over $7$GB. The online phase remains similar; over LAN network setting, ours takes $7.5$ (or $20.9$s) seconds with $45$MB (or $11.7$MB) communication, while Lepoint \textit{et al.} requires $4.2$ seconds with $117$MB communication.
Pierre Briaud, Pierre Loidreau
Estuardo Alpirez Bock, Chris Brzuska, Russell W. F. Lai
In this paper, we show that LK-IND-CPA security with superlogarithmic-length leakage, and thus strong incompressibility, cannot be proven under standard (i.e. single-stage) assumptions, if the encryption scheme is key-fixing, i.e. a polynomial number of message-ciphertext pairs uniquely determine the key with high probability.
Our impossibility result refutes a claim by FKKM that their big-key generation mechanism achieves strong incompressibility when combined with any PRG or any conventional encryption scheme, since the claim is not true for encryption schemes which are key-fixing (or for PRGs which are injective). In particular, we prove that the cipher block chaining (CBC) block cipher mode is key-fixing when modelling the cipher as a truly random permutation for each key. Subsequent to and inspired by our work, FKKM prove that their original big-key generation mechanism can be combined with a random oracle into an LK-IND-CPA-secure encryption scheme, circumventing the impossibility result by the use of an idealised model.
Along the way, our work also helps clarifying the relations between incompressible white-box cryptography, big-key symmetric encryption, and general leakage resilient cryptography, and their limitations.
Vipul Goyal, Akshayaram Srinivasan, Mingyuan Wang
In this work, we explore the possibility of \textit{amortizing} the round complexity or in other words, \textit{reusing} a certain number of rounds of the secure computation protocol in the plain model. We obtain the following results.
1. Under standard cryptographic assumptions, we construct a four-round two-party computation protocol where (i) the first three rounds of the protocol could be reused an unbounded number of times if the receiver input remains the same and only the sender input changes, and (ii) the first two rounds of the protocol could be reused an unbounded number of times if the receiver input needs to change as well. In other words, the sender sends a single additional message if only its input changes, and in the other case, we need one message each from the receiver and the sender. The number of additional messages needed in each of the above two modes is optimal and, additionally, our protocol allows arbitrary interleaving of these two modes. 2. We also extend these results to the multiparty setting (in the simultaneous message exchange model) and give round-optimal protocols such that (i) the first two rounds could be reused an unbounded number of times if the inputs of the parties need to change and (ii) the first three rounds could be reused an unbounded number of times if the inputs remain the same but the functionality to be computed changes. As in the two-party setting, we allow arbitrary interleaving of the above two modes of operation.
Yuting Zuo, Li Xu, Yuexin Zhang, Chenbin Zhao, Zhaozhe Kang
Willow Barkan-Vered, Franklin Harding, Jonathan Keller, Jiayu Xu
Ran Cohen, Pouyan Forghani, Juan Garay, Rutvik Patel, Vassilis Zikas
The starting point of our work is the observation that no known protocol exists for information-theoretic multi-valued OCC---i.e., OCC where the coin might take a value from a domain of cardinality larger than 2---with optimal resiliency in the asynchronous (with eventual message delivery) setting. This apparent hole in the literature is particularly problematic, as multi-valued OCC is implicitly or explicitly used in several constructions. (In fact, it is often falsely attributed to the asynchronous BA result by Canetti and Rabin [STOC ’93], which, however, only achieves binary OCC and does not translate to a multi-valued OCC protocol.)
In this paper, we present the first information-theoretic multi-valued OCC protocol in the asynchronous setting with optimal resiliency, i.e., tolerating $t
We then turn to the problem of round-preserving parallel composition of asynchronous BA. A protocol for this task was proposed by Ben-Or and El-Yaniv [Distributed Computing ’03]. Their construction, however, is flawed in several ways: For starters, it relies on multi-valued OCC instantiated by Canetti and Rabin's result (which, as mentioned above, only provides binary OCC). This shortcoming can be repaired by plugging in our above multi-valued OCC construction. However, as we show, even with this fix it remains unclear whether the protocol of Ben-Or and El-Yaniv achieves its goal of expected-constant-round parallel asynchronous BA, as the proof is incorrect. Thus, as a second contribution, we provide a simpler, more modular protocol for the above task. Finally, and as a contribution of independent interest, we provide proofs in Canetti's Universal Composability framework; this makes our work the first one offering composability guarantees, which are important as BA is a core building block of secure multi-party computation protocols.
Shuaishuai Li, Cong Zhang, Dongdai Lin
Foteini Baldimtsi, Ioanna Karantaidou, Srinivasan Raghuraman
In this work, we define oblivious accumulators, a set commitment with concise membership proofs that hides the elements and the set size from every entity: an outsider, a verifier or other element holders. We formalize this notion of privacy via two properties: element hiding and add-delete indistinguishability. We also define almost-oblivious accumulators, that only achieve a weaker notion of privacy called add-delete unlinkability. Such accumulators hide the elements but not the set size. We consider the trapdoorless, decentralized setting where different users can add and delete elements from the accumulator and compute membership proofs.
We then give a generic construction of an oblivious accumulator based on key-value commitments (KVC). We also show a generic way to construct KVCs from an accumulator and a vector commitment scheme. Finally, we give lower bounds on the communication (size of update messages) required for oblivious accumulators and almost-oblivious accumulators.
Enrique Larraia, Owen Vaughan
Our technique maintains the privacy of the data, and retains control of who can access it and when they can access it. This holds true even on a public blockchain, and even if the data is leaked by authorised parties. Indeed, an authorised data consumer (a designated-verifier for the ZKP), who discloses the data publicly, cannot convince anyone about the legitimacy of the data (in the sense that it is consistent with the information uploaded to the blockchain), because the ZKP proof is valid only for them.
Our techniques can be used in scenarios where it is required to audit highly-sensitive data (e.g. application logs) by specific third parties, or to provide on-demand data certification by notaries