Cryptography and security

Challenges

In the coming years, we aim to contribute to the following challenges in scientific research:

• Post-quantum cryptography. The quantum computers currently under development can break current encryption techniques. A new kind of cryptography is therefore needed to protect digital services, such as banking, from attacks with a quantum computer.
• Secure multi-party computation. Secure multi-party computation enables secure collaboration between multiple parties in the absence of mutual trust, which is increasingly the case in application domains. For example, using patient data to improve patient care. To protect patient privacy, you need to be able to analyze hospital data without hospitals revealing their data to each other.

• Security of large-scale computing infrastructures. Security of large-scale computing infrastructures. The Netherlands has a lot of smart infrastructure, such as systems that control traffic, smart homes, industrial control systems and flood protection systems. How can we trust that they are correctly implemented and not maliciously tampered with?
• Secure intelligence augmentation. Intelligent systems do not have the common sense knowledge to deal with the richness of the real world. They serve more as tools to enhance our own common sense: intelligent augmentation. Such systems must be resistant to intrusion attempts and manipulation of the data they work with.

You can find more about our research focus areas in the Strategic Plan 2022-2027.