Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

New Directions in Lightweight Cryptanalysis

Objective

Over the next five years, fifty billion new smart devices will be connected to the Internet of Things (IoT), creating a revolution in the way we interact with our environment. Such resource constrained devices will require lightweight cryptography to protect them and us from bad actors. Unfortunately, such schemes can be highly vulnerable: Two notable examples are the encryption schemes used in GSM cellular phones and in car remote controls - both broken by the PI. We claim that it is not sufficient to adjust the current design and analysis tools to the constrained environment. Instead, we must establish a new research methodology, aiming directly at the problems arising in the 'lightweight realm'.
We plan to concentrate on four main directions. First, we will go 'a level up' to study the security of generic lightweight building blocks in order to find the minimal number of operations required to transition from insecure to secure designs. Second, when considering specific ciphers we will pursue practical low complexity attacks, which are more relevant to the lightweight realm than standard theoretical attacks. Third, we will pursue new directions toward establishing 'white-box cryptography' – a central challenge in IoT cryptography. Finally, we will explore further applications of discrete analysis to lightweight cryptography, trying to establish rigorous conditions under which the standard cryptanalytic techniques apply in order to avoid unnecessarily pessimistic security estimates.
For the near future, we hope that our research will make it possible to detect and fix weaknesses in existing lightweight ciphers before they can be exploited by the 'bad guys'. Looking forward farther, we hope to understand how to design new secure lightweight ciphers for the billions of IoT devices to come.

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.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

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.

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.

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.

ERC-STG - Starting Grant

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2017-STG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY
Net EU contribution

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.

€ 1 487 500,00
Address
BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY CAMPUS
52900 Ramat Gan
Israel

See on map

Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

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.

€ 1 487 500,00

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0