International Association
for Cryptologic Research

We are seeking to recruit a researcher for an interdisciplinary project on notions of "explainability" in the context of side channel evaluations (considering technical approaches used in both FIPS style as well as CC style evaluations).

The project will run up to three years. It will require a mix of technical skills (we wish to propose and evaluate novel approaches to gather evidence for/against security of implementations given access to side channels) as well as an interest in developing social science research methodologies (we plan to engage with evaluation labs but also vendors to research useful notions of "explainable leakage").

The project will be co-supervised by Prof. Elisabeth Oswald and Prof. Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda; both situated in the interdisciplinary Digital Age Research Centre at the University of Klagenfurt (Austria).

We seek applicants with a mathematical/technical background. For applicants wishing to pursue a PhD, we expect that they have done a MSc/Bsc thesis on side channels/faults with a practical focus. For applicants who already possess a PhD, we expect a strong track record in applied cryptography with some publications in the area of side channels/faults in top venues.

The post holder will be expected to work in Klagenfurt (Austria), and to be able to do short term visits to evaluation labs/vendors throughout Europe.

In order to apply, please send a short CV, including your scientific outputs (e.g. papers, talks, seminars, open source artefacts, etc.), as a single pdf file to Elisabeth.Oswald@aau.at. If you have questions, or wish to discuss informally, please contact Elisabeth Oswald.

We will review applications as they arrive and invite potentially suitable candidates for an online interview as soon as possible, with the intention to fill the post once a suitable candidate has been identified.

Closing date for applications:

Contact: Elisabeth Oswald (Elisabeth.Oswald AT aau.at)