COSIC
Encyclopedia
The Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography research group, commonly called COSIC, is a research group at the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
, which is headed by Professor Bart Preneel
, Vincent Rijmen
, and Professor Ingrid Verbauwhede.
The goal of COSIC's research activities is to create a secure electronic equivalent for interactions in the physical world such as confidentiality, signatures, identification, anonymity, payment and elections. The research concentrates on the design, evaluation, and implementation of cryptographic algorithms and protocols, on the development of security architectures for information and communication systems and on the development of security mechanisms for embedded systems. COSIC's theoretical work is mainly based on discrete mathematics such as number theory
, finite fields, Boolean algebra, but also includes statistics and optimization. The aim is to achieve efficient and secure solutions. The broader goal is to achieve efficient and secure multi-party computation. These mathematical tools are applied to increase our understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of cryptographic algorithms and to develop new and better algorithms such as block ciphers, stream ciphers, public-key encryption algorithms and zero-knowledge identification protocols.
One of the well-known successes is the selection of Rijndael as the Advanced Encryption Standard
(AES). Currently AES is used by millions of users in more than thousand products, such as the protection of US government information. COSIC is also coordinating ECRYPT
, a European-wide Network of Excellence in the area of cryptology and watermarking.
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven is a Dutch-speaking university in Flanders, Belgium.It is located at the centre of the historic town of Leuven, and is a prominent part of the city, home to the university since 1425...
, which is headed by Professor Bart Preneel
Bart Preneel
Bart Preneel is a Belgian cryptographer and cryptanalyst. He is a professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in the COSIC group, president of the International Association for Cryptologic Research, and project manager of ECRYPT....
, Vincent Rijmen
Vincent Rijmen
Vincent Rijmen is a Belgian cryptographer and one of the two designers of the Rijndael, the Advanced Encryption Standard. Rijmen is also the co-designer of the WHIRLPOOL cryptographic hash function, and the block ciphers Anubis, KHAZAD, Square, NOEKEON and SHARK.In 1993, Rijmen obtained a degree...
, and Professor Ingrid Verbauwhede.
The goal of COSIC's research activities is to create a secure electronic equivalent for interactions in the physical world such as confidentiality, signatures, identification, anonymity, payment and elections. The research concentrates on the design, evaluation, and implementation of cryptographic algorithms and protocols, on the development of security architectures for information and communication systems and on the development of security mechanisms for embedded systems. COSIC's theoretical work is mainly based on discrete mathematics such as number theory
Number theory
Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
, finite fields, Boolean algebra, but also includes statistics and optimization. The aim is to achieve efficient and secure solutions. The broader goal is to achieve efficient and secure multi-party computation. These mathematical tools are applied to increase our understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of cryptographic algorithms and to develop new and better algorithms such as block ciphers, stream ciphers, public-key encryption algorithms and zero-knowledge identification protocols.
One of the well-known successes is the selection of Rijndael as the Advanced Encryption Standard
Advanced Encryption Standard
Advanced Encryption Standard is a specification for the encryption of electronic data. It has been adopted by the U.S. government and is now used worldwide. It supersedes DES...
(AES). Currently AES is used by millions of users in more than thousand products, such as the protection of US government information. COSIC is also coordinating ECRYPT
ECRYPT
ECRYPT is a 4-year European research initiative launched on 1 February 2004.The stated objective is to, "intensify the collaboration of European researchers in information security, and more in particular in cryptology and digital watermarking.ECRYPT list five core research areas, termed "virtual...
, a European-wide Network of Excellence in the area of cryptology and watermarking.