Much of the security of today’s IT-systems depend on trusting central points. For example, the secure connection your browser makes when visiting a webpage is guaranteed in part by a central party which certifies the legitimacy of web pages. If such a central party fails in its security, and there are many practical examples of such events, the consequences are large. My research is aimed at getting rid of as much trust as possible in these trusted parties.
What made you want to pursue a PhD?
After graduating with a master’s degree and beginning to work in the cybersecurity industry, I often found that existing ways of building secure systems felt inadequate. However, my knowledge was not deep enough to propose the needed improvements. A PhD was the prefect way of acquiring the needed knowledge.
Do you believe some results from your research will be applied in practice eventually? And if so, how?
I really hope that my final paper called Consistency-or-Die, or some follow up work to it, gets deployed in practice. The paper points out security problems in deployed large-scale systems called Key Transparency logs, which are part of the security in WhatsApp and iMessage, and proposes practical solutions. I also think that some of my research on Intel SGX is valuable in practice.