SaTC: CORE: Small: Transforming Non-Malleable Cryptography

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This project aims to enhance our understanding of tampering attacks which are one of the most basic ones in cryptography and computer security. A tampering adversary may try to modify data at rest or in transit, which could be devastating to the security of a number of computer systems. The goal of non-malleable cryptography is to develop the tools and techniques required to secure computer systems against such attacks. The project's novelties are in conceptualizing a number of new primitives which can help fight against such attacks in emerging computer systems. The project's impacts are in providing an intellectual toolkit to deal with these type of attacks, and in training the next generation of experts in computer security and cryptography.The scope for non-malleable cryptography is quite broad: it ranges from designing protocols secure against man-in-the-middle (MIM) attacks, ensuring guarantees against a tampering attack for data at rest, and the (relatively newer) area of information theoretic non-malleable cryptography. The fundamental nature of these questions can be seen by the connections they have to a number of subareas in cryptography (e.g., secure multi-party computation, and, concurrent secure computation), and even beyond to general theoretical computer science (including to randomness extraction, hardness amplification and coding theory). This project develops new techniques to radically transform the state of art in all of these directions. The research explores novel notions such as non-malleable secret sharing, and, correlated source extractors. The project also tackles long standing open problems in the area of non-malleable commitments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.