Cryptography

Cryptography forms the foundation of information security. In the last decade, many services affecting people's life and privacy have been put online and ensuring that sensitive information stays secure is very important. It is, therefore, necessary to understand why modern cryptography is considered secure, and exactly which security guarantees different encryption methods offer.

At Simula UiB, we study the details of how cryptographic algorithms work. We estimate how much resources the best attacks need to break the security of particular cyphers. This research gives assurance that the cryptography we all rely on really is secure, even when we consider new attack methods and the increase in computing power.

New types of cryptographic algorithms, like fully homomorphic encryption, has the potential to solve many of the trust and privacy issues in cloud computing today. The challenge these novel algorithms currently face is in terms of efficiency. Simula UiB does research in this area also, trying to make new cryptographic techniques more practical and useful in the real world.