The Cryptography Research Center (CRC) of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a leading global scientific research entity and the applied research pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), has raised the curtain on the 21st Cryptology and Network Security Conference (CANS 2022).
A leading fixture for the world’s cryptography community, TII is co-hosting the current edition in cooperation with Springer, International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR), and New York University Abu Dhabi.
The hybrid conference is running at the St. Regis Abu Dhabi – marking its debut in the Middle East region. The annual event is showcasing research breakthroughs and solutions from the world’s most eminent researchers in Cryptology and Network Security.
Notably this year, a leading expert from the world of Cryptology, Claudia Diaz, Chief Scientist at Nym Technologies and an Associate Professor at the department of Electrical Engineering of the KU Leuven is joining CANS to share valuable insights with researchers and cryptographers attending the event in the UAE capital. For the last two decades, Claudia has worked on designing and evaluating privacy technologies, with a major part of her research focused on traffic analysis and anonymous communications. Since 2019 she is one of the main contributors to the design of the Nym network.
Dr. Najwa Aaraj, Chief Researcher, CRC, and Acting Chief Researcher, Autonomous Robotics Research Center (ARRC), said: “As we move closer to a time when quantum computers are a reality, designing and implementing post quantum cryptographic primitives and reinforcing cryptographic protocols are becoming crucial to counter data breaches and preserve our confidential information and security. As a relatively young entity, TII and CRC are pleased to host this defining conference that will add value to the current understanding of this intriguing subject.”
Day one of the conference got underway with CANS-AI, a workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Automation in Cryptography and Network Security as well as on the Security of Artificial Intelligence. In recent years, a growing interplay between AI techniques and cryptography has emerged, with AI holding the potential to improve implementation attacks, attacks on PUFs, and hardware Trojan detection, to name a few areas.
On Day two (November 14) Diaz’s invited talk will be called ‘Nym network: the next generation of privacy infrastructure’, while on the final day (November 16) Shamir’s talk will cover automatic techniques for Cryptanalysis, followed by a session on ‘Cryptographic Protocols’. Post-lunch sessions on ‘Blockchain and Payment Systems’, and ‘Codes and Post-quantum Cryptography’ will conclude the conference.
The conference allows researchers from academia and industry that work on various aspects of cryptography, network security and AI to share their experiences and explore how to strengthen collaboration.