This is the archive of news previously and currently shown on our main page. Seminars are posted on the seminar page. Our latest publications are posted on the publications page.
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2021
Abubakr Abdulgadir spoke at Indocrypt 2021
Abubakr Abdulgadir gave a talk titled "A Lightweight Implementation of Saber Resistant Against Side-Channel Attacks" at the 22nd International Conference on Cryptology in India, Indocrypt 2021, held in hybrid mode on December 12-15, 2021. This talk was based on the paper Abubakr co-authored with Kamyar Mohajerani, Viet Ba Dang, Jens-Peter Kaps, and Kris Gaj. (12/11/2021)
Luke Beckwith spoke at FPT 2021
Luke Beckwith gave a talk titled "High-Performance Hardware Implementation of CRYSTALS-Dilithium" at the 20th International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology, FPT 2021, held as a virtual event on December 6-10, 2021. This talk was based on the paper Luke co-authored with Duc Tri Nguyen and Kris Gaj. (12/11/2021)
CERG ePrint papers on benchmarking of PQC Round 3 candidates in hardware
On October 31, 2021, CERG announced the publication of the following two Cryptology ePrint Archive reports on benchmarking of PQC Round 3 candidates in hardware: "High-Performance Hardware Implementation of CRYSTALS-Dilithium" by Luke Beckwith, Duc Tri Nguyen, and Kris Gaj, ePrint Report no. 2021/1451, and "A Lightweight Implementation of Saber Resistant Against Side-Channel Attacks" by Abubakr Abdulgadir, Kamyar Mohajerani, Viet Ba Dang, Jens-Peter Kaps, and Kris Gaj, ePrint Report no. 2021/1452. On November 17, 2021, CERG announced the release of an additional paper "High-Speed Hardware Architectures and FPGA Benchmarking of CRYSTALS-Kyber, NTRU, and Saber" by Viet Ba Dang, Kamyar Mohajerani, and Kris Gaj, ePrint Report 2021/1508. (11/18/2021)
Rishub Nagpal defended his Master's Thesis
On June 28, 2021, Rishub Nagpal, CERG affiliated scholar, defended his Master's thesis at the Warsaw University of Technology (WUT) in Warsaw, Poland. The thesis is titled "Automatically Generating Related-Key Boomerangs with Constraint Programming: Application to the Saturnin Block Cipher." It was supervisored by Prof. Zbigniew Kotulski, WUT, and reviewed by Dr. Jordi Mongay Batalla, WUT. (06/29/2021)
Michal Andrzejczak defended his Ph.D. Thesis
On June 25, 2021, Michal Andrzejczak, CERG affiliated scholar, defended his Ph.D. thesis at the Military University of Technology (MUT) in Warsaw, Poland. His thesis is titled "Acceleration of lattice based algorithms." His Ph.D. advisor was Prof. Andrzej Paszkiewicz, MUT, and his external reviewers were Prof. Ernest Jamro, AGH University of Science and Technology, and Prof. Miroslaw Kurkowski, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. (06/25/2021)
Multiple members of CERG attended the Future of Cryptographic Engineering webinar
On June 18, 2021, multiple members of CERG attended a webinar titled "Future of Cryptographic Engineering," organized by Sabancı University, Turkey. Speakers at this event included professors: Erkay Savaş (Sabancı University, Turkey), Ingrid Verbauwhede (COSIC Research Group of the Electrical Engineering Department, KU Leuven, Belgium), Thomas Eisenbarth (University of Lubeck, Germany), Patrick Schaumont (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA), Christof Paar (Ruhr University Bochum, Germany and Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, Germany, Francisco Rodríguez Henríquez (Cryptography Research Centre, TII, UAE; Computer Science Department, Cinvestav, Mexico), and Aydın Aysu (NC State University, USA). (06/19/2021)
Duc Tri Nguyen will speak at PQCrypto 2021
Duc Tri Nguyen will give a talk titled "Fast NEON-based multiplication for lattice-based NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography finalists" at PQCrypto 2021, to be held on July 20-22, 2021. This talk will be based on the paper Duc co-authored with Dr. Kris Gaj. The list of all papers accepted to the conference can be found on the conference website. (06/12/2021)
Abubakr Abdulgadir spoke at the special session of GLSVLSI 2021
Abubakr Abdulgadir gave a talk titled "Side-Channel Resistant Implementations of a Novel Lightweight Authenticated Cipher with Application to Hardware Security" at GLSVLSI 2021: Virtual Conference and Exhibition, to be held on June 22-25, 2021. This talk was a part of the Special Session 5A: "New Trends in Hardware Security: Provisioning for Testing, Attack Resilience, and Lightweight Cryptography," proposed and co-organized by Dr. Gaj. (06/12/2021)
Dr. Kaps served as an external reviewer of a Ph.D. thesis defended at the Technical University of Munich
Dr. Kaps served as an external reviewer for the Ph.D. thesis defended at the Technical University of Munich. Dr. Kaps reviewed the thesis developed by Michael Tempelmeier. The final defense took place on June 10, 2021. The supervisor of the thesis was Prof. Dr.-Ing. Georg Sigl, from Chair of Security in Information Technology, Technical University of Munich, Germany. (06/11/2021)
Members of CERG gave three presentations at the Third NIST PQC Standardization Conference
Multiple members of CERG attended the Third PQC Standardization Conference held virtually on June 7-9, 2021. Dr. Gaj gave the talk titled "High-Speed Hardware Architectures and Fair FPGA Benchmarking of CRYSTALS-Kyber, NTRU, and Saber," based on the paper co-authored by Viet Ba Dang, Kamyar Mohajerani, and Kris Gaj. Duc Tri Nguyen gave the presentation titled "Optimized Software Implementations of CRYSTALS-Kyber, NTRU, and Saber Using NEON-Based Special Instructions of ARMv8," based on the paper co-authored with Kris Gaj. Abubakr Abdulgadir gave the talk titled "A Lightweight Implementation of Saber Resistant Against Side-Channel Attacks," based on the paper co-authored by Abubakr Abdulgadir, Kamyar Mohajerani, Viet Ba Dang, Jens-Peter Kaps, and Kris Gaj. All presentations and the corresponding papers can be found at the conference website. (06/10/2021)
Viet Dang's internship at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
On June 1, 2021, Viet Dang started an internship in the RFAMS Design Group at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc, scheduled to last until August 20, 2021. (06/02/2021)
Abubakr Abdulgadir defended his Ph.D. Thesis
Abubakr Abdulgadir defended his Ph.D. Thesis, titled "Secure Implementation of Cryptography: Tools and Case Studies," on May 28, 2021. The members of his dissertation committee included Dr. Kaps (Chair), Dr. Gaj, Dr. Sasan, and Dr. Gordon. (05/21/2021)
Duc Tri Nguyen's internship at General Electric
On May 17, 2021, Duc Tri Nguyen started an internship in General Electric, conducted in Schenectady, NY, scheduled to last until August 20, 2021. His supervisor at General Electric is Dr. Krzysztof Kepa. (05/18/2021)
Duc Tri Nguyen was a part of the team that earned 3rd place in NCCDC 2021
Duc Tri Nguyen was a part of the George Mason University Team that earned 3rd place in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NCCDC). The final round took place on April 23-24, 2021. NCCDC is the nation's largest competition of its kind. It gives cybersecurity students from across the country a chance to test their skills. The GMU team participated in the final round of this competition for the first time in the history. The leader of the GMU Team was Zaine Wilson, BS in Cyber Security Engineering. (05/11/2021)
Richard Haeussler defended his Master's Thesis
Richard Haeussler defended his Master's Thesis titled "Implementation, Benchmarking, and Protection of Lightweight Cryptography Candidates," on April 28, 2021. Members of his Committee included: Dr. Gaj (Chair), Dr. Kaps, and Dr. Sasan. (04/29/2021)
Dr. Kaps and Dr. Gaj served as external reviewers of two Ph.D. theses defended at the Czech Technical University in Prague
Dr. Kaps and Dr. Gaj served as external reviewers for two Ph.D. theses defended at the Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic. Dr. Kaps reviewed the thesis titled "Hardware generated keys for cryptographic systems and protocols," developed by Simona Buchovecka, and Dr. Gaj the thesis titled "The Ring Oscillator based PUF on FPGAs," developed by Filip Kodytek. The final defense took place on April 22, 2021. The supervisor of both theses was Prof. Robert Lorencz, from the Department of Information Security, Faculty of Information Technology, at Czech Technical University in Prague. (04/23/2021)
CERG released a major update of the LWC FPGA Benchmarking Report
On February 24, 2021, members of CERG released a substantial update of their technical report titled "FPGA Benchmarking of Round 2 Candidates in the NIST Lightweight Cryptography Standardization Process: Methodology, Metrics, Tools, and Results." The report was co-authored by Kamyar Mohajerani, Richard Haeussler, Rishub Nagpal, Farnoud Farahmand, Abubakr Abdulgadir, Jens-Peter Kaps, and Kris Gaj. The report is published as the Cryptology ePrint Archive Report 2020/1207. It is also available on the LWC web page of the CERG ATHENa project. (02/25/2021)
Dr. Gaj awarded a Commonwealth Cyber Initiative grant
Dr. Gaj was awarded a grant from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) for the project titled "Evaluation of Lattice-Based Candidates in the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process in Terms of Security and Performance in Hardware." The expected period of performance is January 1, 2021, through May 25, 2022. The anticipated total external funding is $124,000. This project is a joint effort with the research group of Dr. Travis Morrison from the Department of Mathematics at Virginia Tech. (01/14/2021)
Luke Beckwith joined CERG
In January 2021, Luke Beckwith joined CERG as a part-time Ph.D. student, working under the supervision of Dr. Kris Gaj. Luke received his BS and MS degrees in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2019 and 2020, respectively. In parallel with his Ph.D. studies, Luke works as a Computer Engineer at PQSecure. His research interests include hardware and embedded system implementations of the Post-Quantum Cryptography and Lightweight Cryptography algorithms. In 2020, he co-authored a paper, "New Directions for NewHope: Improving Performance of Post-Quantum Cryptography through Algorithm-level Pipelining," which appeared in proceedings of the International Conference on Field Programmable Technology, FPT'20. (01/07/2021)
Dr. Bhasin and Dr. Gaj co-organized special session at DATE 2021
Dr. Shivam Bhasin from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Dr. Kris Gaj co-organized a special session at DATE 2021: Design, Automation and Test in Europe conference. The session was titled "A deep dive into future of lightweight cryptography: New standards, optimizations, and attacks." It included four talks devoted to presenting recent research results, covering different aspects of the security and performance of authenticated ciphers and hash functions, submitted to the NIST LWC Standardization Process. (11/24/2020)