2025-05-26

Title of thesis: Code-based Cryptography: Attacking and Constructing Cryptographic Systems.

Link to thesis in Lund University Research Portal

Defence:  Thursday, June 12th, in E:1406 at 09:15.

Zoom link.
Zoom ID: 66922207456.

Describe your research in a popular science way

In today’s interconnected digital world, cryptography is an essential and indispensable tool underpinning crucial aspects of secure communication, online banking, digital transactions, anonymity, data integrity, and so on. Imagine all of the above (nice) things are no longer possible because of quantum computers, which can undermine the security of our digital lives. Researchers are looking for new ways to protect information - a field called post-quantum cryptography. The process ensures long-term security, a smooth transition from classical cryptography, and maintains digital trust. Among popular approaches, code-based cryptography is a reliable and wellunderstood candidate, signified by the selection of an algorithm called Hamming-Quasi Cyclic (HQC) as one of the selected few by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This standardization organization produces the main cryptographic standards in the world. There are several other code-based promising candidates, for example, those that are still in the NIST Additional Signature Scheme Proposals, an ongoing standardization effort to diversify our post-quantum digital signature portfolio. This thesis first examines the security of several code-based cryptographic constructions. We then propose novel attacking techniques that can be used to give a better security understanding for code-based cryptography. Lastly, we explore the application of code-based cryptography in lightweight cryptography.

What made you want to pursue a PhD?

Coming from a mathematic background, I always wanted to do research, especially with a more ``applied’’ topic. Cryptography was an excellent opportunity for me.

What is the most fascinating or interesting with your thesis subject?

Code-based cryptography is considered quite old and stable, compared to other sibling research directions. However, in the post-quantum era in cryptography, great deals of novel code-based variants/paradigms have been proposed, making code-based cryptography a remarkably rich and lively research area. Lots of interesting things remain to be studied and explored in code-based cryptography, and they can have an immense impact on how data is encrypted in the very near future.   

Do you believe some results from your research will be applied in practice eventually? And if so, how / how?

Definitely. For example, a part of my work was towards design flaws in novel code-based constructions. These are very implicit pitfalls that can heavily worsen the security of code-based cryptographic primitives, and we hope that future researchers and users can avoid them. In addition, people will have a bigger and clearer picture of code-based cryptography security.

 What are your plans?

Perhaps moving to the industry to know how things work and materialize some of the ideas I have during Ph.D. Such experience may benefit me a lot in the future as a researcher.