The digital infrastructure is essential to everyday life – from healthcare records to online banking. As cyberattacks grow more aggressive, coordinated and financially motivated, protecting sensitive information stored in the cloud is more crucial than ever. Attackers are increasingly capable of coercing or compromising the servers that hold valuable data, and current protection methods struggle under extreme pressure.

Sophia Yakoubov’s project tackles this challenge head-on. Traditional cryptographic techniques, such as secret sharing, protect data by distributing it across many servers – but if all servers are forced to reveal their share, the protection fails. Deniable Secret Sharing introduces a new layer of defence: it enables servers to appear compliant while providing false but convincing data, ensuring that the real secret remains secure even when adversaries apply pressure to all the servers.

“We rely on digital infrastructure for everything from healthcare to banking. This project aims to ensure that people’s most sensitive information remains safe – even when adversaries pressure all of the servers entrusted with the data,” says Sophia Yakoubov, Associate Professor, Aarhus University.

This award recognises Sophia Yakoubov as a leading international researcher in secure computation and strengthens her ability to drive forward new solutions that can protect society’s most critical digital systems. 

About the Inge Lehmann Programme

The Inge Lehmann Programme 2025 has allocated DKK 80.9 million to support a more balanced gender representation in research, particularly at career stages where inequality often emerges. In 2025, Independent Research Fund Denmark received 206 applications and awarded grants to 23 researchers, corresponding to a success rate of 11.2 percent. All funded projects are led by women, reflecting the programme’s purpose of strengthening gender balance while ensuring that all awards are based on a thorough and objective assessment of research excellence. The programme is open to all scientific fields and supports ambitious projects with high international impact. For more information, see the announcement from the foundation.