Project description
Advanced tools for safer digital systems
Cyberattacks such as ransomware and data breaches are becoming more sophisticated, putting critical systems at risk. While there are tools that analyse and secure digital protocols, they often fall short when dealing with complex scenarios involving probabilities. For example, distance-bounding protocols and electronic voting rely on subtle probabilistic behaviours that current methods tend to overlook. This gap leaves room for vulnerabilities to go unnoticed. The ERC-funded VePaSS project will merge ideas from security, game theory and symbolic computation to build smarter tools to address these challenges. New practical tools will automatically verify complex stochastic protocols. Project outcomes will ensure safer digital systems and greater trust in the technologies we rely on every day.
Objective
Critical digital infrastructure is increasingly threatened by attacks such as payment fraud, data breaches, and ransomware. Formal methods have been developed to rigorously analyse security protocols, which are the backbone of current digital security. Notably, automated tools, such as ProVerif, have been vital in analysing real-world protocols including TLS and Signal.
A significant limitation in current formal methods stems from abstracting probabilistic behaviours to simplify the analysis. This leads to oversights in cases involving non-negligible probabilities, such as reasoning about distance-bounding protocols and electronic voting. Meanwhile probabilistic verification has been an active field for the past two decades, particularly in relation to cyber-physical systems and network protocols. Verification of security systems does not yet benefit from these advances, yielding a significant blind spot: modern security protocols with probabilistic behaviours and complex threat models remain vulnerable to undetected security flaws.
The VePaSS project aims to build new interdisciplinary connections between security, games and symbolic computation, to address the ambitious goal of verifying probabilistic security systems. The primary challenge in such an integration is that algorithmic game theory has predominantly concentrated on finite stochastic games, whereas security protocols, when represented symbolically, are inherently infinite. We seek to leverage recent breakthroughs in countable stochastic games and symbolic computation to develop a unified model and to design decision procedures and practical tools for the automatic verification of complex stochastic protocols such as electronic voting and distance-bounding protocols. The project has a strong scientific impact by addressing open problems in verification and symbolic computation, economic impact by enhancing the security of digital systems, and societal impact through its work on electronic voting.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC-SYG - HORIZON ERC Synergy Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-SyG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.