Overview
Digital signatures are used widely to ensure authentication, this means Alice can check that she received a message from Bob and not Eve. Signatures are used in important cryptographic protocols such as TLS to enable secure communications over a network. Moreover, there are additional types of signature schemes, such as group signatures or threshold signatures, which offer functionality for multiple parties for a variety of interesting applications. Given the ongoing advancements in quantum computing, there is an effort to ensure our current public key cryptography withstands attacks via known classical and quantum algorithms, such as Shor’s algorithm, and to ensure diversity and security of cryptography. With this, there are ongoing global standardisation efforts in digital signatures, with new schemes introduced and requiring further analysis in terms of performance and security. This project aims to advance the state of the art in post-quantum cryptographic digital signatures.
This project will focus on digital signatures, investigating the hardware implementation, security, and optimisation of such schemes, leading to increased performance with consideration to real world scenarios.
The objectives include:
[1] Become familiar with digital signatures, particularly for post-quantum cryptography (PQC).
[2] Understand the current challenges and identify limitations in PQC signature schemes.
[3] Select one or more promising signature schemes, with consideration of the NIST PQC additional signatures competition.
[4] Investigate and propose novel algorithmic or hardware optimisations to address identified limitations, for example to accelerate schemes, increase security, or to extend functionality.
[5] Demonstrate proposed techniques in a working hardware design or hardware-software co-design, benchmarking results for a target PQC application, on a suitable platform (e.g. FPGA).
Funding Information
To be eligible for consideration for a Home DfE or EPSRC Studentship (covering tuition fees and maintenance stipend of approx. £19,237 per annum), a candidate must satisfy all the eligibility criteria based on nationality, residency and academic qualifications.
To be classed as a Home student, candidates must meet the following criteria and the associated residency requirements:
• Be a UK National,
or • Have settled status,
or • Have pre-settled status,
or • Have indefinite leave to remain or enter the UK.
Candidates from ROI may also qualify for Home student funding.
Previous PhD study MAY make you ineligible to be considered for funding.
Please note that other terms and conditions also apply.
Please note that any available PhD studentships will be allocated on a competitive basis across a number of projects currently being advertised by the School.
A small number of international awards will be available for allocation across the School. An international award is not guaranteed to be available for this project, and competition across the School for these awards will be highly competitive.
Academic Requirements:
The minimum academic requirement for admission is normally an Upper Second Class Honours degree from a UK or ROI Higher Education provider in a relevant discipline, or an equivalent qualification acceptable to the University.
Entrance requirements
Graduate
The minimum academic requirement for admission to a research degree programme is normally an Upper Second Class Honours degree from a UK or ROI HE provider, or an equivalent qualification acceptable to the University. Further information can be obtained by contacting the School.
International Students
For information on international qualification equivalents, please check the specific information for your country.
English Language Requirements
Evidence of an IELTS* score of 6.0, with not less than 5.5 in any component, or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University is required (*taken within the last 2 years).
International students wishing to apply to Queen’s University Belfast (and for whom English is not their first language), must be able to demonstrate their proficiency in English in order to benefit fully from their course of study or research. Non-EEA nationals must also satisfy UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) immigration requirements for English language for visa purposes.
For more information on English Language requirements for EEA and non-EEA nationals see: www.qub.ac.uk/EnglishLanguageReqs.
If you need to improve your English language skills before you enter this degree programme, INTO Queen’s University Belfast offers a range of English language courses. These intensive and flexible courses are designed to improve your English ability for admission to this degree.
