*
Quick Links|Home|Worldwide
Microsoft*
Search for

CRYPTOGRAPHY, SECURITY, AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS

:: overview :: people :: projects :: related teams :: careers ::

  

overview

The cryptography security and algorithms (CSA) group was started in May 2006,. The group focuses on mathematical and practical aspects of cryptographic primitives, cryptanalysis, protocols, system and code security, and algorithms. We are currently working in the following areas:

  • Cryptanalytic attacks
  • Cryptographic protocols
  • Number Theory, Elliptic Curves and Abelian varieties
  • Machine learning in adversarial settings
  • Coding theory and algebraic aspects of complexity
  • Program transformation tools for software protection and security

The CSA group actively participates in and sponsors various conferences and is involved in educational activities. Our past events include the Cryptography Summer School at the Indian Institute of Science (May-June 2006).

Click for details of the MSR India Theory Day, Saturday, December 22, 2007

 

people

 
Ramarathnam Venkatesan Satya Lokam Vijay Patankar Srivatsan Laxman Raghav Bhaskar Debapratim De Ravi Kannan Abishek Kumarasubramaniam
venkie satya vij slaxman rbhaskar dde kannan abikum
Principal Researcher Researcher Associate Researcher Post Doctoral Researcher Post Doctoral Researcher Assistant Researcher Principal Researcher Assistant Researcher

collaborators

  • Advanced Development and Prototyping Group, MSR India
  • Chennai Mathematical Institute, Chennai
  • Codes Group, INRIA, Rocquencourt
  • Computer Science Department, IISc, Bangalore
  • Cryptography and Anti Piracy Group, MSR Redmond
  • Digital Geographics Group, MSR India
  • Indian Statistical Institute Calcutta, Kolkata
  • Institute Mathematics Initiative (IMI), IISc
  • Institute of Mathematical Scoences (IMSc), Chennai
  • Microsoft India Development Center, Hyderabad
  • Rigorous Software Engineering group, MSR India
  • Theoretical Computer Science, IIT Madras, Chennai

    • visitors

  • Abhinav Kumar, MSR Redmond
  • Dan Boneh, Stanford Univ.
  • David Jao, Univ. of Waterloo
  • Dimitar Jetchev, U. C. Berkeley
  • Henry Cohn, MSR Redmond
  • Kivanc Michak, MSR Redmond
  • Prasad Tetali, Georgia Tech.
  • Ravi Kannan, Yale Univ.
  • V. Kumar Murty, Univ. of Toronto  

    interns

  • Abishek Kumarasubramanian, IIT Madras -> MSR India
  • Anand Kumar Narayanan, MIT Chromepet, Chennai -> Univ. of Southern California
  • Avinash Vaidyanathan Varadarajan, IIT Madras -> U. C. Berkeley
  • Debapratim De, BITS Pilani -> MSR India
  • Krishna Bhat, IISc -> Crane Softwares
  • Kunal Rajvanshi, IIT Delhi
  • Prasad Raghavendra, IIT Madras -> Univ. of Washington
  • Rajasekar Manokaran, IIT Madras -> Princeton
  • Ramesh Raju, IIT Madras
  • Seetharam S. T.
  • Subrahmanyam K., Georgia Tech.
  • Sundeep B., IIT Madras -> Univ. of Chicago
  • Tamoghna Ghosh, ISI Calcutta
  • Vaibhav Singh, IIT Madras

    projects

  • Analysis of Cryptographic Primitives: The security of most cryptographic schemes relies implicitly on the security of the cryptographic primitives used. However, most primitives used in practice are not provably secure. We are analysing such primitives, using various techniques, in order to understand their behavior better. The goal of this project is to subject such primitives to close scrutiny and find vulnerabilities in them. We hope that the understanding gained in this process shall help us build more efficient and provably secure primitives. The primitives we are currently interested include hash functions, block ciphers and message authentication codes.
  • AV Codes: AV codes are a class of error correcting codes developed that have fractional minimum distance close to half and very efficient decoding algorithm. The design of the code makes it “resemble” a random code and thus inherits many properties proved by Shannon for random codes. The main advantage of the AV codes are that their asymptotic properties becomes practically true at much smaller block lengths as compared, say LDPC codes. This makes them very attractive for use in low power devices.
  • Graph-matching approach to virus detection: The goal of this project is to develop an algorithm which can do robust matching and diffing at the level of binaries without access to source code. The idea is to view the binaries as their control flow graphs and trying to solve the Minimum Graph Transformation problem on the graphs. Potential applications include virus checking, efficient patching, code plagiarism detection and code duplication detection.
  • Protocols for Electronic Commerce and Privacy: We have several ongoing projects in the area of cryptographic protocols, including traitor tracing protocols, group key agreement protocols, identity and privacy management protocols. We are also interested in studying their applications to electronic commerce.
  • Learning in an adversarial context: Machine learning algorithms are nowadays popular in many applications like anti-spam, intrusion detection, search, etc., where security-concerns can become a serious issue. What happens when these applications themselves are subject to malicious attacks? In particular, we consider the problem of learning support vector machines from data that has been maliciously manipulated by an adversary.
  • Learning-based prioritization of access control vulnerabilities: We investigate the problem of learning probability models for data constituted by structural patterns like Directed Acyclic Graphs.
  • Matrix Rigidity: A matrix is rigid if many of its entries must be altered to reduce its rank, say, to a constant fraction of its original rank. Finding explicit rigid matrices is a long-standing open question in combinatorial-algebraic complexity. Recently, we proved optimal lower bounds on the rigidity of certain specific complex matrices. Proving similar lower bounds for matrices over low-dimensional number fields and finite fields is still a major challenge. In a different direction, it is conjectured that distinguishing between random matrices and matrices of low rigidity is computationally hard. Such a conjecture can be a basis for building cryptosystems.
  • Coding Theory in Cryptography and Complexity: There exists an exciting synergy between error correcting codes, cryptography, and complexity. We are particularly interested in the design and analysis of various cryptographic schemes based on (conjectured) hard problems about error correcting codes. We are also interested in constructions and limitations of new classes of locally decodable and list decodable codes and their connections to cryptography and complexity theory.
  • Splitting of Abelian Varieties: We are investigating some new local-global problems in the context of Abelian varieties. We are studying the splitting behaviour of the reduction of a given absolutely simple Abelian variety modulo various primes. We are pursuing a conjecture that relates this splitting behaviour with the endomorphism algebra of the given Abelian variety.
  • Pairings in Cryptography: There are certain cryptographic protocols that are based on bilinear pairings defined using Elliptic curves and their torsion points. We will study such pairing based cryptographic systems and related algorithms.

    • publications

    Information coming soon...

    careers

    We are looking for people who are trained in mathematics, computer science, and related areas of electrical engineering, programming and security. We invite applicants from India or abroad with bachelors, masters or doctoral degrees. We have exciting opportunities at various levels for researchers, inteons, visitors, and research software development engineers.

    ©2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use |Trademarks |Privacy Statement