Cryptographic algorithms are the equivalent of locks, seals, security stamps and identification documents over the Internet. They are essential to protect our online bank transactions, credit cards, medical and personal information, and to support e-commerce and e-government. They come in different flavors. Encryption algorithms are necessary to protect sensitive information such as medical data, financial information and Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) from prying eyes. Digital signature algorithms (in combination with hash functions) and MAC algorithms replace hand-written signatures in electronic transactions. Identification protocols allow to securely verify the identity of a remote party. As a whole, cryptology is a research area with a high strategic impact in industry, for individuals, and for society.
The research activity of project-team CASCADE addresses the following topics, which cover most of the areas that are currently active in the international cryptographic community, with a focus on public-key algorithms:
The paper "Password-Based Authenticated Key Exchange In The Three-Party Setting", by Michel Abdalla, Pierre-Alain Fouque, and David Pointcheval from PKC 2005, has received the Test-of-Time award at PKC 2022
David Pointcheval is the recipient of the RSA Conference 2021 Award for Excellence in the Field of Mathematics
David Pointcheval has been awarded the CNRS silver medal
David Pointcheval has been awarded an ERC Proof of Concept on his project CryptAnalytics
Phong Nguyen has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant on his project PARQ