HYPERSHIELD: Protecting the Hypercube MPC-in-the-Head Framework Against Differential Probing Adversaries without Masking (Linda Pirker, Quinten Norga, Suparna Kundu, Anindya Ganguly, Barry van Leeuwen, Angshuman Karmakar, Ingrid Verbauwhede) ia.cr/2026/081

Beyond-Birthday-Bound Security with HCTR2: Cascaded Construction and Tweak-based Key Derivation (Yu Long Chen, Yukihito Hiraga, Nicky Mouha, Yusuke Naito, Yu Sasaki, Takeshi Sugawara) ia.cr/2026/085

Structured Module Lattice-based Cryptography (Joppe W. Bos, Joost Renes, Frederik Vercauteren, Peng Wang) ia.cr/2026/098

Masking Out of Order: Side-Channel Leaks from Software-Masked Cryptography on Out-of-Order Processors (Eden Desmet, Suparna Kundu, Ingrid Verbauwhede) ia.cr/2026/123

Catch up on COSIC news! Our December–January newsletter is now online: www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/sites/...

We have a new PhD student! Félix Incerti did an internship with us last year, working on intrusion detection for CAN-BUS systems, and he is now back with us to continue his research journey as a PhD student. Welcome! #choosecosic

This week in COSIC... "PQCSA workshop Open-Source PQC Libraries and Implementations" in Brussels on Friday. You can still register via: www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/events... #pqcsa #pqc

Robin Geelen successfully successfully defended his PhD thesis on "Towards Practical Bootstrapping in Fully Homomorphic Encryption" today, congrats! 🥳🎓🎉

Dilara Toprakhisar successfully defended her PhD thesis "On the Gaps in Fault and Combined Attack Security and Efficient Countermeasure Design" today! 🎓🥳🎉

zkRNN: Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Recurrent Neural Network Inference (Fatemeh Zarinjouei, Behzad Abdolmaleki, Maryam Zarezadeh, Bhavish Mohee, Aysajan Abidin, Stefan Köpsell) ia.cr/2026/073

Uniform Sharing in Multiple Stages: NullFresh for Arbitrary Functions (Artemii Ovchinnikov, Aein Rezaei Shahmirzadi, Siemen Dhooghe) ia.cr/2026/079

🕵️‍♂️ Hunting for free crypto papers? Step 1: Find a Bluestein NTT. Step 2: Swap in Rader. Step 3: Profit (×2 speed, easier primes). Step 4: Impress your supervisor. 🎓 Free reading here (blog by Jonas Bertels): www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/blog/f... #NTT #CryptoMath

Cybersecurity bites blog (in Dutch): "Een terugblik op 2025" cybersecurity-bites.be/cyberwijs/ee...

Sayon Duttagupta successfully defended his PhD thesis on "Analysis and Design of Cryptographic Protocols for IoT Devices" today! 🥳🎓 Want to know more about Sayon's work? Check out the recent #whisperpair attack: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j45...

"Highway to Hack – Security Gaps in ETSI ITS Standards" by R. Gesteira Minarro, T. Yoshizawa, R. Palacios and G. Lopez is accepted and will appear in Computer Standards & Interfaces.

The paper "Certificate Revocation - Search for A Way Forward" by T. Yoshizawa, H. Agarwal, D. Singelée and B. Preneel is published in Computers & Security: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This week in COSIC... On Wednesday there is a seminar on "Exploiting Side-Channel Leakage from a Fault Injection Countermeasure for ML-KEM" by Luca Biscaldi (Delft University). Free to attend. More info on www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/?post_...

Belgisch onderzoek van de groep van Bart Preneel aan de KUL (COSIC) Hundreds of Millions of Audio Devices Need a Patch to Prevent Wireless Hacking and Tracking | WIRED

🎧 #COSIC research on #Bluetooth earbuds & speakers vulnerable to hacking & tracking, featured in NY Times Wirecutter. www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/r... ▶️ Demo: youtube.com/watch?v=-j45... #KULeuven #nytimes #google #whisperpair #fastpair

On 30 January, @cosic.bsky.social will host a workshop on Open-Source PQC Libraries & Implementations, in Brussels. We will have great specialists as our speakers: Bart Preneel Amos Treiber Simon Josefsson Hanno Becker Apply on the link: lnkd.in/eakH3fri

"Un fallo en Fast Pair expone millones de auriculares y altavoces a un secuestro" (Ultima Hora) www.ultimahora.es/noticias/tec... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Sicherheitslücke macht Hörstöpsel zur Wanze" (Golem) www.golem.de/news/google-... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Let op: hackers kunnen je locatie tracken via je oordopjes" (Android World) androidworld.nl/nieuws/let-o... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Miljoenen oordopjes en koptelefoons zijn kwetsbaar: wie luistert er met je mee?" (Bright) www.bright.nl/nieuws/17318... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Many Bluetooth devices with Google Fast Pair vulnerable to “WhisperPair” hack" (ars Technica) arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Major security flaw affects Sony, Google, and other popular headphones" (Sound Guys) www.soundguys.com/google-fast-... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"WhisperPair attack exposes millions of Bluetooth devices to location tracking" (Cyber Insider) cyberinsider.com/whisperpair-... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"WhisperPair Attack Leaves Millions of Audio Accessories Open to Hijacking" (Security Week) www.securityweek.com/whisperpair-... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Leuvense onderzoeker over ‘kritiek’ lek in beveiliging van Bluetooth: 'Het grootste dat we ooit ontdekten'" (Het Belang van Limburg) www.hbvl.be/binnenland/l... (paywall) #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Update your headphones: Fast Pair vulnerability could let attackers track your location" (Android Authority) www.androidauthority.com/whisperpair-... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Google Fast Pair devices need an immediate update for hacking risk" (Android Police) www.androidpolice.com/fast-pair-de... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Many Google Fast Pair devices need an update to patch exploits that allowed attackers to track you" (9to5google) 9to5google.com/2026/01/15/g... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Critical WhisperPair flaw lets hackers track, eavesdrop via Bluetooth audio devices" (Bleeping Computer) www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/securit... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Bluetooth-accessoires kapen met Google Fast Pair": eng.kuleuven.be/nieuws-en-ag... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Hijacking Bluetooth Accessories Using Google Fast Pair": eng.kuleuven.be/en/news-cale... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

Yesterday on Belgian Radio Joe FM, Prof. Preneel explained how COSIC can hijack Bluetooth devices via Google’s Fast Pair! 🎧 Watch the full demo: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j45... #COSIC #KULeuven #WhisperPair #Google #FastPair #Bluetooth

"Leuvense onderzoekers vinden lek in Bluetooth pairingdienst Google" (Data News) datanews.knack.be/nieuws/secur... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

"Ernstig beveiligingslek in Bluetooth-oortjes: ongemerkt meeluisteren én volgen mogelijk" (HLN) www.hln.be/multimedia/e... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair #bluetooth

Bart Preneel in Belgian newspaper De Morgen: AI peer reviews are tempting to just copy, but without accountability quality suffers. De-anonymizing reviews could force transparency and make reviewers actually check the research. www.demorgen.be/nieuws/ik-sc... [paywall] #ai #peerreview

Check out our video to understand the #WhisperPair attack: youtu.be/-j45ShJINtc?... More technical info: whisperpair.eu

Timed Commitments and Timed Encryption: Generic Constructions and Instantiations from Isogenies (Mingjie Chen, Jonas Meers) ia.cr/2026/057

Thomas Decru, Sabrina Kunzweiler: Abelian surfaces in Hesse form and explicit isogeny formulas https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05922 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.05922 https://arxiv.org/html/2601.05922

FRIttata: Distributed Proof Generation of FRI-based SNARKs (Hua Xu, Mariana Gama, Emad Heydari Beni, Jiayi Kang) ia.cr/2025/1285

The Cokernel Pairing (Krijn Reijnders) ia.cr/2026/001

ML-DSA-OSH: An Efficient, Open-Source Hardware Implementation of ML-DSA (Quinten Norga, Suparna Kundu, Ingrid Verbauwhede) ia.cr/2025/2337

Analysis of Diffusion Properties in Generalized Feistel Ciphers under Multidimensional Linear Cryptanalysis (Betül Askin Özdemir, Vincent Rijmen) ia.cr/2025/2333

Distributed Symmetric Key Establishment with Forward Secrecy for Implantable Medical Devices (Roozbeh Sarenche, Sayon Duttagupta, Francesco Milizia, Kevin Bogner, Varesh Mishra) ia.cr/2025/2322

"Leuvense onderzoeker over ‘kritiek’ lek in beveiliging van Bluetooth: “Het grootste dat we ooit ontdekten" (GVA): www.gva.be/binnenland/l...

Tonight at 19h on Belgian TV (#VTM NIEUWS), COSIC’s research shows how attackers can silently take over #Bluetooth earbuds - listening in or tracking users. Watch a teaser from the 13h news (from 28:00): www.vtmgo.be/vtmgo/afspel... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair

"Snelle bluetoothverbinding van Google maakt je kwetsbaar voor afluisterpraktijken" (TechPulse) techpulse.be/nieuws/49376... #cosic #kuleuven #WhisperPair #google #fastpair