This is a fully-funded Ph.D. position for a UK/EU/International student (tuition fees plus stipend) to pursue a Ph.D. research degree in the Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick. Note that for international students, the overseas tuition gap will be covered as well.

The project is in the area of security and cryptography, in particular, investigating next-generation cryptocurrency that is more scalable, privacy-preserving, and usable than what we have today.

An ideal candidate should have excellent undergraduate and master degrees (equivalent to at least a UK 2.1) in Computer Science or relevant disciplines such as Mathematics and Engineering; a solid mathematical background as well as strong programming skills; experience in security research.

The closing date for application is 30 April 2020.

Interested candidates are encouraged to apply as early as possible. First, express your interest by sending your CV to Prof Feng Hao (feng.hao@warwick.ac.uk). If your background is found suitable, you will be directed to make a formal application. All formal applications will need to be made online through https://warwick.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply/research/.

Further information about the research environment: The Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick is one of the leading CS departments in the UK. In the latest 2014 REF (Research Excellence Framework) assessment participated by all UK universities, Warwick Computer Science is ranked the 1st for research output, 2nd for research impact, and 2nd overall among 89 CS departments in the UK. The University of Warwick is consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the UK. It is also known for its beautiful campus, friendly social environment, vivid student lives, and easy transport links to all major cities in the UK including London.

We are looking for candidates for 1 Research Fellow / postdoc position (from fresh post-docs to senior research fellows, flexible contract duration) on symmetric-key cryptography and/or side-channel analysis. Candidates are expected to have a proven record of publications in top cryptography/security venues. Salaries are competitive and are determined according to the successful applicants accomplishments, experience and qualifications. Interested applicants should send their detailed CVs, cover letter and references to Prof. Thomas Peyrin (thomas.peyrin@ntu.edu.sg). Review of applications starts immediately and will continue until positions are filled.

The Security and Networking Lab (SECAN-Lab, https://secan-lab.uni.lu/) at the University of Luxembourg offers a full-time position for a PhD candidate (3 years, with a possible extension of 1 year) in the area of Application-Driven Cryptographic Protocols, in particular Privacy-Preserving Protocols. Potential application domains include Mobile Payments, Vehicular Networks, Autonomous Driving, etc. We are looking for an ambitious candidate with an excellent Master’s degree (top 10%) in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, or Electrical Engineering and a specialization in IT-Security and Cryptography. The position is embedded in an excellent international working environment comprising domain as well as cryptography experts, and comes with a competitive salary.

In the context of the Cluster of Excellence CASA (Cyber-Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries), the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Sciences at Ruhr-Universität Bochum invites applications for the position of a Full Professor (W3) for Data-Driven Security to start as soon as possible. The candidate is expected to establish an excellent research program, to conduct and publish innovative research, be an effective lecturer and mentor of both undergraduate and graduate students, and participate in institutional and professional processes. We are looking for scientists with an internationally visible research profile in Quantum Information, in at least one of the following subfields:

Computer security and machine learning

Security in distributed systems

Secure and dependable software systems

Privacy Enhancing Technologies

The successful applicant is expected to cooperate with the Horst Görtz IT Security Research Department (HGI) and especially with the recently granted Cluster of Excellence CASA. The recently founded Max Planck Institute for Cybersecurity and Privacy offers additional possibilities for collaboration.

International visibility through publications and projects and above-average third-party funding are expected, as well as the willingness and ability to lead and participate in large collaborative projects. Positive evaluation as a junior professor or equivalent academic achievement (e.g. Habilitation) or significant post-doctoral research contributions and teaching experience is as much required as the willingness to participate in the self-governing bodies of the RUB. Furthermore, a strong commitment to academic teaching, the readiness to participate in interdisciplinary research and the proven experience in successful acquisition of third-party funds are expected. Ruhr-Universität Bochum is an equal opportunity employer and offers a dual career program (see https://www.dcnruhr.de/en for details).

Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) is one of Germany’s leading research universities.
In the context of the Cluster of Excellence CASA (Cyber-Security in the Age of Large-ScaleAdversaries), the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Sciences at Ruhr-Universität Bochum invites applications for the position of an Assistant Professor (W1) for Software Security with Tenure Track to start as soon as possible.
The candidate is expected to establish an excellent research program, to conduct and publish innovative research, be an effective lecturer and mentor of both undergraduate and graduate students, and have an interest to participate in institutional and professional processes. We are looking for scientists with an internationally visible research profile in computer security, in at least one of the following subfields:

Software-based side channel and micro-architectural attacks

Software aspects of network and Internet security

Security and Privacy

Security in new application domains

The successful applicant is expected to cooperate with the Horst Görtz IT Security Research Department (HGI) and especially with the recently granted Cluster of Excellence CASA. The recently founded Max Planck Institute for Cybersecurity and Privacy offers additional possibilities for collaboration.

We expect:

Excellent scientific qualifications, usually proven by a Ph.D. thesis of outstanding quality and first-class international publications

strong commitment to academic teaching at graduate and undergraduate level

willingness to participate in interdisciplinary research

willingness and ability to attract external funding

readiness to contribute to joint research projects

The position includes a tenure track option, after a positive evaluation the position will be turned into a tenured professorship (W2). Complete applications including CV, copies of academic certificates, list of publications, list of self-raised third-party funds, teaching record, and a statement of research interests should be sent by email to the

Due to expanding our research domain in electronic voting, we are looking to recruit a new researcher in this field.

Possible more specific topics include:

• security and cryptography in the post-quantum era,
• mobile platform security,
• human and social aspects of voting security,
• cryptographic protocols,
• verifiability aspects of electronic voting,
• security of electronic identity solutions.

Successful applicant has a

• PhD degree in computer science, mathematics, software engineering or in a closely related field, or an equivalent qualification,
• proven track record showing academic and/or industrial performance in the field of security or cryptography.

We offer

• opportunity to make a research contribution to the World’s leading digital society with 44% of the votes being cast online,
• opportunity to integrate new research activities into Cybernetica’s R&D portfolio, as well as to contribute to existing themes;
• to work with, learn from, and teach highly qualified professionals, both in research and development;
• to be part of, and improve e-society in Estonia and internationally;
• being part of a growing team either in our Tallinn or Tartu office;
• flexible working hours.

Two fully funded PhD scholarships for EU/UK applicants are available in the Security and Trust of Advanced Systems Group (Prof. Achim Brucker and Dr. Diego Marmsoler) at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Exeter, UK.

We are looking for enthusiastic and outstanding Computer Science or Mathematics students with a strong background in some of the following topics:

• safety or security of (software) systems,
• formal modelling or formal reasoning/verification,
• program analysis or program verification,
• language-based security
• semantics of programming languages,
• theorem proving, model checking,
• cryptographic protocols,
• distributed systems (e.g., blockchain),
• specification-based testing, and
• design and implementation of security architectures.

This award provides annual funding to cover UK/EU tuition fees and a tax-free stipend. For students who pay UK/EU tuition fees the award will cover the tuition fees in full, plus at least £15,009 per year tax-free stipend. The studentship will be awarded on the basis of merit for 3.5 years of full-time study.

For more details, please consult the official advertisement. The closing date for applications is midnight on 1 May 2020.

As part of the expansion of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Exeter [1], we are recruiting for a Lecturer in Cybersecurity. The lecturer will be part of the newly formed Security and Trust of Advanced Systems Group [2].

We are looking for a candidate with an outstanding research record in any area related to cyber security (information security) such as (but not limited to):

• access control
• usable security
• software/application security
• formal methods for security
• language-based security/privacy
• secure programming
• information flow
• security protocols
• network security
• security of distributes systems
• human aspects of security
• hardware security
• security economics
• security-by-design
• applied cryptography
• privacy-enhancing technologies
• threat hunting, security analytics
• threat modelling
• forensics, reverse engineering
• trustworthy AI/ML
• security/penetration testing

You will have a PhD or equivalent in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering or a related area. Please refer to the job description for full details.

We understand security and safety entangled concepts: in most modern systems one cannot be achieved without the other. Hence, we encourage also candidates working in related domains such as safety, dependability, resilience, or reliability to apply.

Please apply by 8th of April 2020! See the full announcement and application details at

https://jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecruitment/wrd/run/ETREC107GF.open?VACANCY_ID=803965SHQd&WVID=3817591jNg&LANG=USA

We are happy to do online/remote interviews. Feel free to contact me for informal inquiries about the post.

The Security & Crypto Group in the EECS Department at UC Berkeley welcomes inquiries for postdoctoral fellowships in the area of secure multi-party computation. Please send a CV to raluca.popa@berkeley.edu, and list at least three letter writers in the CV.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to conducting research in the areas of homomorphic encryption, post-quantum cryptography, privacy-preserving mechanisms applied to machine learning, and security proofs, and building software prototypes to demonstrate the feasibility of technical solutions. The ideal candidate will initiate and organize the design, development, execution, implementation, documentation and feasibility studies of scientific research projects to fuel SHIELD’s growth in secure computing and cloud product concepts and new business opportunities. They will also pioneer substantial new knowledge of state-of-the-art principles and theories, contribute to scientific literature and conferences, and participate in the development of intellectual property. Required Abilities: 1) Highly competent in interpersonal communication. 2) A self-starter with initiative and a strong drive to identify and resolve technical issues. 3) Able to clearly explain complex concepts and take the lead in team decision-making. Qualifications: 1) PhD in cryptography. 2) One or more publications on cryptography in a top-tier, peer-reviewed conference/journal. 3) Deep expertise in the state-of-the-art of partially-, somewhat-, and fully homomorphic encryption; experience implementing prototypes is a strong asset. 4) Thorough understanding of lattice-based cryptography, including the underlying security problems, parameter selection, implementation, and side-channel resistance. 5) Skill in developing software prototypes in any of the following programming languages: C++, C, Python, Go or Rust. Preferred Qualifications: 1) Familiarity with other post-quantum cryptography families (e.g. hash-based signatures, code-based, isogeny or multivariate quadratic cryptography). 2) Familiarity with the application of privacy-preserving cryptographic techniques to machine learning. 3) Familiarity with highly regulated industries, such as banking, government, and/or health care. For immediate consideration, please submit your CV/resume and transcripts to careers(at)shieldcrypto.com and include “Cryptographer” in the subject line.

The chair of Security Engineering at Horst Görtz Institute for IT-Security (HGI) at Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) has openings for a post-doc position. We are looking for outstanding candidate with strong background in Electrical/Computer Engineering, and/or Cryptography. The available position is fully funded for two years with possible extensions depending on the candidate's performance. In addition to the usual computer and electrical engineering background, the candidate is expected to be familiar with side-channel analysis attacks, and be able to deal with FPGAs & hardware designs, e.g., VHDL/verilog, which is essential for the project. The candidate should show strong publication records, at least a publication in venues like CHES, EUROCRYPT, ASIACRYPT, CRYPTO, DATE & DAC.
Please send your application via e-mail as a single pdf containing a CV, list of publications, and copies of transcripts and certificates.

The PCI Standards Council (PCI SCSC) was founded in 2006 by American Express, Discover, JCB International, MasterCard and Visa Inc. who share equally in governance and execution of the organisation’s work. Its stated aim is to bring payments industry stakeholders together to develop and drive adoption of data security standards and resources for safe payments worldwide. PCI SSC mandates in the PIN Security Requirements and Testing Procedures: V3 2018 that to achieve “Control Objective 5: Keys are used in a manner that prevents or detects their unauthorised usage”, that “Encrypted symmetric keys must be managed in structures called key blocks. The key usage must be cryptographically bound to the key using accepted methods.” This is PIN Security Requirement 18-3, which further details three acceptable methods of implementing this requirement but also states that these methods are not an exhaustive list. The Australian payments industry does not use key blocks to manage the symmetric keys used as PIN Encrypting Keys (PEK). The question of which other methods are acceptable has been raised, which has resulted in a PCI FAQ. The latest version of which is in the publicly available document PCI PTS PIN Security Requirements, Technical FQAs V3, February 2020, FAQ 27, and requires an independent expert to assess the equivalency of other methods. PCI has also produced several blogs on the case for key blocks and two Informational Supplements, PCI PTS PIN: Cryptographic Key Blocks June 2017 and PCI PIN Security Requirement: PIN Security Requirement 18-3 Key Blocks: June 2019. AusPayNet is seeking to engage an independent expert, who meets the requirements set out by PCI in the PIN Security FAQ 27. This expert must assess the Australian PEK key management methodologies and determine if they provide equivalent levels of protection that prevent or detect their unauthorised usage, as compared to key blocks. AusPayNet is seeking to have the work completed in Q2 2020. For more information or to provide a copy of your CV and some indicative costs.

1. Overall introduction. There are three Ph.D. position openings (full scholarship, tuition & very competitive stipend) at Dr. Jiafeng Harvest Xie's Security & Cryptography (SAC) Lab for the Fall of 2020, located at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Villanova University (PA, USA).

2. Research area. Post quantum cryptography hardware, fault detection/attack, and cryptanalysis.

3. Qualification. Preferred to have research experience in the areas of cryptographic engineering, fault detection, cryptanalysis, and VLSI design. Students from electrical/computer engineering, computer science, and cryptography (applied mathematics) or other related majors are WARMLY welcome! Programming skills such as HDL, C++, Python will be more favorable.

4. Application process. Interested students can directly send the CV/resume to Dr. Jiafeng Harvest Xie's email: jiafeng.xie@villanova.edu.

5. Application information. The detailed application requirement is available at https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/engineering/grad/admission/departmentalRequirements.html

6. Additional information. Villanova University is a private research university located in Radnor Township, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. U.S. News & World Report ranks Villanova as tied for the 46th best National University in the U.S. for 2020.

7. PI introduction. Dr. Jiafeng Harvest Xie is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Villanova University. His research interests include cryptographic engineering, hardware security, and VLSI digital design. He is the Best Paper Awardee of IEEE HOST 2019. He is also the Associate Editor for Microelectronics Journal, IEEE Access, and IEEE Trans. Circuits and Systems II.

The Network and Information Security Group is currently looking for up to 2 motivated and talented researchers (Postdoctoral Researchers) to contribute to research projects related to applied cryptography, security and privacy. The successful candidates will be working on the following topics (but not limited to):

• Searchable Encryption and data structures enabling efficient search operations on encrypted data;
• Restricting the type of access given when granting access to search over one's data;
• Processing of encrypted data in outsourced and untrusted environments;
• Applying encrypted search techniques to SGX environments;
• Revocable Attribute-Based Encryption schemes and their application to cloud services;
• Functional Encryption;
• Privacy-Preserving Analytics;
• IoT Security.

Programming skills is a must.

The positions are strongly research-focused. Activities include conducting both theoretical and applied research, design of secure and/or privacy-preserving protocols, software development and validation, reading and writing scientific articles, presentation of the research results at seminars and conferences in Finland and abroad, acquiring (or assisting in acquiring) further funding.

The School of Cyber Science and Engineering (formerly known as the School of Information Security Engineering) of Shanghai Jiao Tong University was founded in October 2000. It was the first school-level training base for high-level information security professionals in China and was jointly established by the Ministry of Education of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government. The undergraduate and postgraduate students of the school mainly come from the top 100 key high schools and 985/double first-class universities in China. The school is ranked among the best cyberspace security nationwide every year. The school has a solid foundation and strength in the field of academic research and technological innovation on cyberspace security. The school is committed to building a world-class academic research center, cultivating the talents of the country and society. The school is in great demand of a number of world renowned professors, outstanding young researchers, full-time research fellows and post-doctors. The school now has about 20 positions available at the rank of tenure-track Assistant Professors, tenure-track Associate Professors, or tenured Full Professors in theory and practice of cyberspace security. Applicants should have (a) a doctoral degree in Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Communication, Mathematics or Statistics; (b) an established track record in research and scholarship; (c) expertise in the cryptographic and security research areas; and (d) a demonstrated commitment to excellence in teaching. The school will provide highly competitive remuneration packages and assist applicants to apply for various national, provincial and ministerial level talent programs such as “1000 Youth Talents Program”, Shanghai “Oriental Scholar Program”,etc. We will also assist on employment of spouses, schooling for children and medical care.

NuCypher is a cryptography company that builds privacy-preserving infrastructure and protocols. We are backed by Y Combinator and Polychain Capital.

A successful candidate will lead engineering for the new open-source cryptographic product from the ground up. They will work on problems at the forefront of cryptography and have a leadership role in design decisions of the system. As such, competency in algorithms and low-level design is a must. An interest in compilers and/or optimization would be nice to have.

Given the nature of an early stage product, a successful candidate should work in a fast and iterative style when it comes to prototyping. They will be be motivated by solving tough open-ended problems. Additionally, they should be highly comfortable working in a system programming language such as C or Rust (whether through work experience or side projects).

We offer extremely competitive compensation and a highly flexible working environment (remote-first, headquartered in San Francisco).

A postdoctoral positions related to privacy-enhancing cryptography in distributed ledgers. Strong applicants in other areas of cryptography, or security & privacy might also be considered. Candidates should have a PhD in cryptography, or a security & privacy related field.

We are looking for postdoctoral researchers with an excellent track record in one of the following fields of applied cryptography:

• symmetric-key cryptology such as block ciphers, stream ciphers, hash functions, message authentication codes, authenticated encryption schemes, etc.
• post-quantum cryptology
• cryptology for emerging technologies such as IoT and public ledger/blockchain
• side-channel analysis, whitebox cryptography, countermeasures
• implementation aspects of cryptography in software or hardware
• provable security of symmetric cryptographic primitives and modes of operation

The appointment is for 3 years with a flexible starting date in 2020. We offer a competitive salary, a team of other postdocs as well as PhD students within the field to work with, a dynamic and highly international work environment as well as possibilities to conduct top-notch research in any subdomain of applied cryptology.

More information: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/183156/postdoctoral-research-fellow-position-in-informatics-applied-cryptology

Funded position for PhD in the Mathematics of Post-Quantum Cryptography, to work on theoretical questions. The research will be on some or all of the following: isogenies, algebraic geometry, codes, lattices. The ideal candidate will have a strong undergraduate mathematics knowledge including abstract algebra, number theory and geometry. An MSc is a plus. Experience with computer programming and cryptography is also desirable. This is part of a collaboration with the group of Prof. Steven Galbraith at the University of Auckland and interaction with this group is expected.

BIMSA

Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (BIMSA) is a new research institution to be established and lead by Professor Shing-Tung Yau, a Fields medalist of 1982. Its location is in the Yanqi Lake area of Beijing where APEC 2014 was hosted. It was expected to launch by the end of March 2020.

Program

Advanced Cryptography and Blockchain Program will be one of the many research groups of BIMSA. It will be focused on:

• zero knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs etc.)
• fully homomorphic encryption
• secure multiparty computation
• related cryptographic schemes
• blockchain

with a combination of theoretical studies and practical implementations.

Positions

We have 20 open positions on all levels, with competitive compensation packages:

• Distinguished Research Professor
• Research Professor
• Associate Research Professor
• Assistant Research Professor (tenure-track)
• Visiting Research Professor
• Research Fellowship (postdoc)

We intend to build a strong and highly international team, participating in the mainstream of academic studies and industrial innovations worldwide.

For further information, please check the following links:

http://ymsc.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/content/show/91-275.html

https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/14633

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6634985279591718912/

The Cybersecurity - Identity Management group at the Hasso-Plattner-Institute (HPI), University of Potsdam is seeking to fill several PhD and PostDoc positions in the area of cryptography and privacy.

Your future tasks

• Development of provably secure cryptographic protocols for real-world problems. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
  • Distributed identity management
  • Privacy-enhancing technologies
  • Foundations and solutions for real-world cryptography
• Publish and present results at top-tier international conferences
• Participate in teaching activities

Your skills

• Master's degree (or PhD for postdoctoral position) in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related area by the time of appointment
• Profound knowledge in the areas of cryptography and IT security (for postdoctoral candidates proven in the form of publications in these areas)
• Excellent English language skills

What we offer

• Collaborative work environment in a newly established research group
• Outstanding setting to conduct top academic research with strong connections to industry
• Working at the HPI campus in Potsdam-Babelsberg (S-Bahn station Griebnitzsee) near to Berlin

We look forward to your application including two references, motivation letter and copies of relevant diplomas and certificates. Please submit your application documents (only as PDF) via email.

Constraint Programming for Cryptanalysis of Symmetric Encryption Schemes

• Location: LIMOS, Clermont-Ferrand, France
• Salary: 2000€
• Duration: 1 year
• Keywords: Cryptanalysis symmetric, constraint programming, SAT solving, ILP.
• Starting date: As soon as possible, when we have a good candidate; at least before October 2020.

Your Profile

• A PhD in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Cryptography or related field.
• Competitive research record in symmetric cryptography or in constraint programming.
• Commitment, team working and a critical mind.
• Good written and verbal communication skills in English are essential.

This post-doc is founded by the ANR project Decrypt started in January 2019.

Transforming a theoretical cryptanalysis into a SAT problem or into a set of linear constraints could be a hard and time-consuming task. Our aim is to use constraint programming (CP) to simplify the way the symmetric key attacks are modeled and thus to overpass existing cryptanalytic results. Preliminary studies are really encouraging.

Goal

The main goal is to identify schemes and attacks for which it is possible to use off-the-shelf CP, SAT or ILP approaches. To achieve this goal, the work will be divided into the following tasks.

1. Study symmetric encryption schemes and identify for several schemes the different components that are used in the scheme design.
2. Design CP, SAT, and ILP models for cryptanalytic problems on selected schemes. We will mainly focus on the following attacks: cube attacks, conditional cube attacks with division property, (related-key) differential and linear cryptanalysis, word-based division property / integral distinguisher.
3. Experimentally evaluate CP, SAT, and ILP solvers on the models designed in previous tasks, and compare these solvers with existing dedicated cryptanalysis approaches. Design of a tool to automate this task is one of the goals of the project.

We are living in an era where everything is connected, thus continuously generating, acquiring and processing a huge amount of data. Users may enjoy a diversity of assisted services, personalised applications and targeted recommendations. However, spread concerns about users' privacy are arising.

We are seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate to work in privacy-preserving algorithms and protocols. The proposed topics include (but are not limited to):

- Post-quantum privacy-enhancing techniques

- Privacy-preserving machine learning/deep learning modelling for IoT personalised applications

- Privacy-preserving computation for distributed learning.

We look favourably on applicants who can demonstrate a knowledge of cryptography, machine learning, information security and who have strong programming and mathematical skills. Within your statement, please make sure to discuss which area of research you are interested in and your academic background to support this. In the first instance, candidates can discuss applications with Dr Nesrine Kaaniche via email (n.kaaniche@sheffield.ac.uk).

Required Qualifications: Good first degree in Computer Science If English is not your first language, you must have an IELTS score (or equivalent) of 6.5 overall, with no less than 6.0 in each component.

Funding Details: The studentship will cover tuition fees at the Home/EU rate and provide an annual stipend at the standard RCUK rates for three and a half years.