Whenever you buy something online, check your e-mail or use your e-banking, there is a mathematical tool running behind the scene to make sure people cannot steal your information. This tool is called cryptography.

At the Cryptography and Cyber Security group we do research in public-key cryptography, cryptographic protocols and quantum cryptography. Public-key cryptography draws inspiration from both complexity theory and algebra, more specifically number theory and algebraic geometry, and is extremely useful in practice. The cryptographic protocol research area is experiencing an extremely fast development, where the group contributes both to the basic theory of the field and to efficient constructions and implementations. In quantum cryptography, the group contributes with efficient experimental implementations as well as theoretical work.

For over 30 years we have done research in Secure Multiparty Computation. Aarhus University and The Alexandra Institute are world leaders in this technology.

We all realize the importance of protecting systems from attacks by viruses and hackers, but the applications of information security go far beyond that: In a modern information-driven society, we need to do business and exchange information between people who may have conflicting interests, and do not necessarily trust each other a priori. As examples, one may think of systems for e-commerce, e-voting or electronic auctions. In such scenarios, security is a complex notion. In an e-commerce system, for instance, the need to prevent misuse of the system seems to necessitate identification and surveillance of users, whereas the need to protect privacy pulls in the opposite direction.

It follows that we need to understand what security really means, which goals can be achieved in which scenarios and which cannot, and finally how we can build efficient systems and solutions achieving these goals.

If you want to know more about the group and our history visit this site.