The Group

The Applied Cryptography Group was founded in April 2019. It belongs to the Institute of Information Security at the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich. The group's research interests lie in all aspects of Cryptography, especially Applied Cryptography.

Cryptography provides a fundamental set of techniques that underpin secure systems. It includes basic techniques to enable services such as confidentiality and integrity of data in secure communication systems, as well as much more advanced methods such as cryptographic schemes that enable searches over encrypted data. It draws broadly from theoretical computer science (algorithms, complexity theory), mathematics (number theory, probability) and engineering (both electronic- and software-engineering).

Our research in Applied Cryptography brings all of these strands together to produce impactful research that improves the security of today’s and tomorrow’s cryptographic systems.

We work closely with industry to remediate any security issues that we find, following responsible disclosure processes. We are also working in standards bodies (IETF and IRTF) to lead the development of new cryptographic standards for the Internet.

We are affiliated with the Zurich Information Security and Privacy Center (ZISC).

For more information about our activities please consult the list of our projects and publications.