Cryptographic protocols form the backbone of our digital society. Unfortunately, however, the security of numerous critical components has been neglected. As a consequence, attacks have resulted in financial loss, violations of personal privacy, and threats to democracy. My research aids the secure design of cryptographic protocols and facilitates the evaluation of existing schemes.
Developing a secure cryptographic protocol is game-like in nature, and a good designer will consider attacks against key components. Unlike games, however, an adversary is not governed by any rules and may deviate from expected behaviours. Secure cryptographic protocols are therefore notoriously difficult to define. Accordingly, cryptographic protocols must be scrutinised by experts using procedures that can evaluate security properties.
My research enables security properties of cryptographic protocols to be studied, and I focus broadly on the following complimentary topics:
With applications in domains including:
My results make extensive use of symbolic modelling techniques and, in particular, the applied pi calculus.