This project aims to develop practical and usable protocols that achieve the strong security properties needed for secure group communication.
Studentship group name
Digital Resilience
Department/School
School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Project Description
Billions of people use E2E-secure protocols everyday to send messages via services such as via Whatsapp or Signal. A fundamental property underlying these services is Post-Compromise Security. This ensures that cryptographic protocols can regain security, even after their secret key has been exposed and hence allows systems to restore trust. The primitive that offers Post-Compromise Security is Continuous Group Key Agreement (CGKA) [1]. However, designing CGKA with this property is hard and often compromises are taken. Such examples are using a security model that only allows for limited capabilities of the attacker, being susceptible to quantum adversaries, or using expensive techniques that are not practical for use in real-world systems. This project aims to build upon CGKA by developing protocols that are practical and meet the nuanced requirements needed in secure group messaging. Understanding the limitations of existing definitions and models, and thus refining definitions to more closely match the use cases in the real-world would be a natural starting point for this PhD project. The project then could proceed by developing protocols that match these new definitions and with formal security proofs. This PhD can also take a post-quantum focus, where quantum resistant protocols are developed.
[1] Alwen, J., Coretti, S., Dodis, Y., Tselekounis, Y. (2020). Security Analysis and Improvements for the IETF MLS Standard for Group Messaging. In: Micciancio, D., Ristenpart, T. (eds) Advances in Cryptology – CRYPTO 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12170. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56784-2_9
How to Apply
Open to UK and International students starting in October 2023.
Applications should be submitted via the Computer Science PhD programme page. In place of a research proposal you should upload a document stating the title of the projects (up to 2) that you wish to apply for and the name(s) of the relevant supervisor. You must upload your full CV and any transcripts of previous academic qualifications. You should enter ’Faculty Funded Competition’ under funding type.
Funding
The studentship will provide a stipend at UKRI rates (currently £17,668 for 2022/23) and tuition fees for 3.5 years. An additional bursary of £1700 per annum for the duration of the studentship will be offered to exceptional candidates.
Continue with Facebook