Shaping tomorrow's world: cybersecurity

With the development of digital technologies and the internet of things, cybersecurity is going to be a crucial issue in coming decades. To find answers, X is involved in the development of computer security and cryptology. The cryptology researchers at X's Computer Science Laboratory are working on methods of securing communications, for connected objects in particular. They are developing new mathematical formulations that use elliptic curves to produce very concise but difficult to solve problems. They are therefore studying problems that will be used in the future to create even more effective cryptography systems with more compact, more secure cryptographic keys. Another team in the Computer Science Laboratory is investigating the design and implementation of formal tools to help build and verify security proofs, by designing programming languages and computer-aided verification systems. Their aim is to provide the methodologies necessary for the certified production of cryptographic standards with strong security guarantees against concrete malicious attack models. Other work being conducted in the laboratory concerns embedded systems, such as automatic pilots for aircraft, smart electrical networks or driverless vehicles, and in these areas, the researchers are using formal verification to ensure the correct operation of these cyber-physical systems. This technique is frequently used in industry but is very costly in terms of computation. The researchers are endeavoring to find methods of formal verification that reduce the time and memory capacity needed to guarantee the security of these systems. On the training side, in 2018 X launched a Master of Science and Technology degree aimed at students wishing to embark on a career in cybersecurity, either on the technical side or as department manager, auditor or expert.