COSIC researcher Jiayi Kang successfully defended her PhD thesis on "Optimisations and Applications of Fully Homomorphic Encryption" today! 🎓🥳

🎥 Relive the Highlights of the Cybersecurity Industry Day! www.linkedin.com/posts/cybers...

John Gaspoz successfully defended his PhD thesis on "Secure Software Masking Schemes Against Power Analysis Attacks" today, congratulations! 🎓🥳

The COSIC newsletter for October and November is now online, go to www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/sites/... to see what we've been up to.

🏆 Finalist for the Cyber Security Researcher Award 2025: Vincent Rijmen! Vincent is best known as the co-designer of the Rijndael algorithm, which became the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) – a cornerstone of secure digital communication globally. #BelgiumCyberSecurityAwards

Curious how tabletop exercises help you prepare for digital crises? This new blog post (in Dutch) explains their value and practical use. Read it here: cybersecurity-bites.be/ict-beheer/h... #cybersecurity

A new member in the team of Prof Frederik Vercauteren: welcome to Arthur Herlédan Le Merdy! "I chose COSIC because it holds a central place in cryptography, especially in isogeny-based post-quantum cryptography, where the group has made many major contributions." #choosecosic

Today, COSIC professor Ingrid Verbauwhede received the FWO Excellence Prize for her pioneering work in hardware and semiconductor security, presented by King Philippe of Belgium. A well-deserved recognition of her outstanding career. #kuleuven #fwo #cosic

A study shows 3.5 billion WhatsApp accounts could be scraped via the app’s lookup feature. Bart Preneel notes in newspaper De Morgen that default settings expose far more user data than most expect: profile photos, bios, even sensitive info. www.demorgen.be/nieuws/3-5-m... (paywall)

📹Sharing knowledge matters. We recorded the #PQCSA workshop on #PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry in Frankfurt. Q&A and hands-on parts stay exclusive, but the main talks are now online: youtube.com/playlist?lis... #postquantum #quantum #eudigital

We’re incredibly proud of Prof. Vincent Rijmen, whose pioneering work with Joan Daemen led to #Rijndael, now honoured with an #IEEE Milestone as the foundation of the global #AES standard. A landmark moment for KU Leuven and for secure communication worldwide.

Honouring a milestone in cryptography: #IEEE has awarded a Milestone to the #AES standard, originally designed as #Rijndael by KU Leuven’s Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen. Their work continues to secure everything from smartphones to critical infrastructure worldwide.

Our postdoc Rafa Gálvez will speak at MyData-Trust's Data Privacy for Health & Life Sciences Summit in Brussels on January 29th on "Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: Enabling Data Innovation Without Compromise": www.mydata-trust.com/events/data-... #mydata #mydatatrust #privacy

Sharing knowledge matters. We recorded the #PQCSA workshop on #PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry in Frankfurt. Q&A and hands-on parts stay exclusive, but the main talks are now online: youtube.com/playlist?lis... #postquantum #quantum #eudigital

Bart Preneel warns in De Morgen that the new EU chat control still risks the end of private communication. Softened measures don’t hide that scanning messages for child abuse remains intrusive and prone to false positives. #Privacy #ChatControl www.demorgen.be/nieuws/afzwa... [paywall]

This week in COSIC... Tomorrow we are organizing the IEEE Milestone Award Ceremony to honor the selection of Rijndael as AES: rijndael-ieeemilestone.cs.ru.nl/index

Our research expert Aysajan Abidin leading a breakout session on "Post-Quantum Cryptography: Roadmap, Status and Next Steps" at the Cybersecurity Industry Day in Mechelen yesterday. #cif #pqc #postquantum

Today at the Cybersecurity Industry Day in Mechelen, COSIC researchers are demonstrating real-world security challenges, from (un)safe hotel room locks to images that share the same hash value. #cif #kuleuven

Bart Preneel wil speak about privacy at "and& connect": "On November 13, start-ups, scale-ups and investors gather in Leuven, Europe’s Capital of Innovation. Not just to shake hands, but to ask the question that matters: What about us, humans?" www.andconnect.be

TreeCast: Multi-Party Key Establishment Protocol for IoT Devices (Supriyo Banerjee, Sayon Duttagupta) ia.cr/2025/2021

Closing the PQCSA Workshop on "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for Automotive". The day ends with group roadmap building, live feedback, and consensus on next steps. www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events... #pqcsa #pqc #postquantum #quantum #escar

Group sessions to draft PQC transition steps and milestones, guided by the experts - at the PQCSA Workshop on "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry". www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events... #pqcsa #pqc #postquantum #quantum #escar

At the PQCSA Workshop on PQC Migration, Jan Klaußner (BDR, Germany) gives a brief introduction before participants move on to group sessions to draft PQC transition steps and milestones, guided by the experts. www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events... #pqcsa #pqc #postquantum #quantum #escar

Aysajan Abidin (COSIC, KU Leuven) is organizing the PQCSA Workshop on "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry" in Frankfurt today. A day full of interesting talks and group discussions. www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events... #pqcsa #pqc #postquantum #quantum #escar

Melissa Azouaoui (NXP, Germany) giving a talk on "Beyond Quantum Resilience: Embedded Security with and for PQC" at the PQCSA Workshop on "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry" today. www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events... #pqcsa #pqc #postquantum #quantum #escar

We are honoring the selection of the Belgian cipher #Rijndael as the Advanced Encryption Standard (#AES) at the IEEE Milestone Award Ceremony on November 18, 2025 in Heverlee, Belgium. Interested? Sign up here: rijndael-ieeemilestone.cs.ru.nl/index

COSIC Prof Bart Preneel giving a lecture on "The Quantum Threat and its Impact on the Automotive Industry" at the PQCSA "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry" in Frankfurt today. www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events... #pqcsa #pqc #postquantum #quantum #escar

Takahito Yoshizawa (COSIC, KU Leuven) talking about the impact of PQC in V2X at the PQCSA Workshop on "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry" in Frankfurt today. #pqcsa #pqc #postquantum #quantum #escar

🏅On 24 November FWO and FNRS are awarding the FWO-Excellence Prizes. COSIC Professor Ingrid Verbauwhede (KU Leuven) will receive the "Excellentieprijs dr. A. De Leeuw-Damry-Bourlart 2025 in de Toegepaste Wetenschappen". 🖊️https://fwo.idloom.events/uitreiking-excellentieprijzen-2025

Karthikeyan Bhargavan from Cryspen gave the keynote talk at the PQCSA workshop on "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry" this morning in Frankfurt. www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events... #pqcsa #pqc #postquantum #quantum #escar

This week in COSIC... Finally our PQCSA event in Frankfurt is happening! The workshop on "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry" will take place on Friday. www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events...

Valerio Ardizio is the newest member of Frederik Vercauteren's team! "I chose COSIC because of its welcoming, inspiring, and stimulating research environment, as well as the outstanding expertise of the researchers who are part of this group." #choosecosic

Great news: the paper "Integral cryptanalysis in characteristic $p$" by our researchers Tim Beyne & Michiel Verbauwhede will receive the Best Theory and Early Career Award at #Asiacrypt 2025! asiacrypt.iacr.org/2025/program...

Next week we are organizing the #PQCSA "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry" Workshop in Frankfurt (Germany). 👉You can still register (last chance): www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events...

The EU will scrap the controversial mass surveillance clause from its proposed child abuse regulation. Privacy experts like Bart Preneel have long warned it’s "like putting a camera in every home." #ChatControl #Privacy #EU www.standaard.be/buitenland/e...

Exciting news! 🎉 COSIC Professor Vincent Rijmen has been selected as one of the finalists for the Belgian Cyber Security Awards 2025, a great recognition of his lasting impact and expertise in the Belgian cybersecurity community.🔐 #CyberSecurity #COSIC #KULeuven

Blind zkSNARKs for Private Proof Delegation and Verifiable Computation over Encrypted Data (Mariana Gama, Emad Heydari Beni, Jiayi Kang, Jannik Spiessens, Frederik Vercauteren) ia.cr/2024/1684

Keyed-Verification Anonymous Credentials with Highly Efficient Partial Disclosure (Omid Mirzamohammadi, Jan Bobolz, Mahdi Sedaghat, Emad Heydari Beni, Aysajan Abidin, Dave Singelee, Bart Preneel) ia.cr/2025/041

LightCROSS: A Secure and Memory Optimized Post-Quantum Digital Signature CROSS (Puja Mondal, Suparna Kundu, Supriya Adhikary, Angshuman Karmakar) ia.cr/2024/1929

Complex Elections via Threshold (Fully) Homomorphic Encryption (Charlotte Bonte, Georgio Nicolas, Nigel P. Smart) ia.cr/2025/1482

We dove into the fascinating world of cryptography at the #Kinderuniversiteit in Leuven last weekend! The kids unraveled ancient codes, discovered how spies sent secret messages, and became real codebreakers. 🕵️‍♂️✨

A trip down memory lane with Ingrid Verbauwhede: "A picture from history: ASIC design of a domain-specific programmable co-processor for DES (Data Encryption Standard) in 2.4micron CMOS, 2 layers of metal, licensed from imec to CryptechNV" Source: www.linkedin.com/posts/ingrid...

Welcome to Stelios Manasidis, who is visiting us and researching hardware implementations of post-quantum signature schemes. #choosecosic

COSIC researcher Can Ozkan presented "Penetration Testing in Wind Farms: Detection and Impact Analysis" at IEEE PES ISGT Europe 2025 in Malta on 21st October. ieee-isgt-europe.org/conference-p...

COSIC researcher Quinten Norga attended the ACM SIGSAC CCS conference in Taipei (Taiwan) and wrote a cool blog post: "ACM CCS 2025 Spotlight: How Bad Was The Falcon Bug of 2019?", check it out at www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/blog/c... #acm #ccs #acmccs

The new program for the PQCSA workshop on PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry is now online. Last chance to register: www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events... #PQCSA #PQC #ESCAR #PostQuantum

We are excited to share that Karthikeyan Bhargavan, co-founder and chief research scientist at Cryspen, will give a keynote talk at the PQCSA "PQC Migration & Supply Chain Readiness for the Automotive Industry" workshop (co-located with ESCAR in Frankfurt).

The book chapter on "5G Authentication Mechanisms" by T. Yoshizawa (COSIC), S. Backia Mary Baskaran and X. Huang is accepted in the book "5G Networks and Cyber Security" (River Publisher).

"On Performance Improvement of Reinforcement Learning for Collision Avoidance in Autonomous Intersections" by A. Huszak, T. Yoshizawa, A. Aghabagherloo, D. Singelée and B. Preneel is accepted in IEEE Access.

Bart Preneel warns the #NSO sale to US investors may be aimed at removing US blacklist barriers, potentially reopening a huge market for #Pegasus and lucrative zero-day exploits. WhatsApp ban helps, but the threat may continue. www.standaard.be/buitenland/b... (paywall)