Kontakt zum IKS
Am Fasanengarten 5
Geb. 50.34
D-76131 Karlsruhe
Tel.: + 49 721 608-44205
Fax: + 49 721 608-55022
E-Mail: info(at)iks.kit.edu
Welcome at the Institute of Cryptography and Security (IKS)
Founded in 2009 the Institute of Cryptography and Security (IKS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is part of the KIT Focus COMMputation which addresses the challenges of complex systems by combining communication and computation.
Formerly known as the Institute of Algorithms and Cognitive Systems (IAKS, headed by Prof. Dr. Th. Beth) the IKS, nowadays, is a collaboration of the four research groups IKS Müller-Quade, IKS Hofheinz, IKS Calmet and IKS Volmar. They look at ways how provable security can be achieved, how computer algebra can be optimized and how parallel systems work.
As a part of the IKS the European Institute of System Security (EISS) cooperates with the Research Center for Information Technology (FZI) and industrial partners.
Research topics
An overall research topic is provable security. Closely related to that are symbolic calculations in computer algebra. Techniques from theorem provers can be assigned to many applications: from a method of modelling cultural thinking in humanities to probabilistic proves in cryptography. Our research on parallel processing is based on concurrency of different versions of multithreaded systems. In addition, we work on the draft, implementation and evaluation of parallel algorithms.
Selected research areas and projects
KASTEL The main topics intelligent infrastructure, cloud computing, and public security challenge the IT security of the future. In addition to the classical term of security, one has to deal with threats from the inside as well. It is not enough anymore only to look at security issues of system components. We have to focus on transdisciplinary methods. The Kompetenzzentrum für Angewandte Sicherheits-TEchnoLogie (KASTEL) is a research center for cyber security and combine several areas of IT security and their users.
Secure Cloud Computing Cloud Computing facilitates ressource-efficient and flexible computing as well as the use of large data stores. In this project, we develop practical solutions which guarantee data privacy even if the service provider is not trustworthy.
Special Hardware for Cryptanalysis We investigate the limits of specialized hardware to factor integers and to perform algebraic attacks on block ciphers. The main goal is to parallelize the algorithms in a suitable way, so that they work efficiently on chips of standard size.
Wireless Key Exchange We investigate the possibility of performing secure key exchange based on a physical phenomenon called multipath interference. Future applications may include almost all kind of mobile devices, such as smartphones and laptops.
Secure Function Evaluation How can two mutually distrusting millionaires find out which of them is richer without revealing any further information about their wealth? How can two (or more) mutually distrusting parties evaluate jointly any predefined function on their secret inputs? What are the minimal building blocks that allow for secure computation of such function values?
SOKEN: SOcial Key Exchange Network SOKEN is a method for obtaining an ad-hoc key exchange network. This network employs day-to-day encounters of its participants to exchange key material. Cryptographic keys are passed on in a manner that enables two participants to derive a shared secret without ever having met in person.
SumoDacs The goal of the SumoDacs project is the development of an architecture for secure access to business data with mobile devices using secure hardware. An access control mechanism which is based on context-sensitive roles allows for a flexible and fine-grained rights management, thus meeting the challenge of ubiquitous application scenarios.
Lattice-based cryptography We construct and analyze cryptographic systems whose security is based upon the hardness of certain computational problems in lattices. Examples of such systems are hierarchical identity-based encryption systems (HIBEs), whose rich structure can be implemented using a new technique (dubbed "Bonsai trees") to delegate lattice bases.
Security Models Formal security models are necessary for mathematically sound security proofs. However, what properties are crucial for a system's security depends on the considered application. A security proof in an inadequate model would not rule out all relevant attacks.
Bingo Voting Bingo Voting is a new developed voting procedure using electronic voting machines and guarantees complete and provable verifiability of the election
results without comprimising election secrecy. Every elector gets a record
right after the election with which only he can verify the correct counting
of his vote. The safety of the procedure depends on a trusted random number
generator.
History of Computing in Computer Science