PhD Project in Security of Electronic Identity

PhD Project in Security of Electronic Identity

Technical University of Denmark - DTU Informatics

DTU Informatics would like to invite applications for a 3-year PhD position starting October 1st 2012 (or soon thereafter). The project is financed by the EU-Project "FutureID - Shaping the future of electronic identity".

Project Description
FutureID is a collaboration of 20 partners from industry and academia to build reliable, interoperable, scalable and privacy-friendly solutions for electronic identity, from architecture and design to implementation.

The tasks of DTU in collaboration with two other academic partners in FutureID are:

• Formal modelling and automatic verification of the developed e-ID protocols and systems. This involves defining a precise model of the honest participants, the capabilities of an adversary, access control policies, and the desired security goals. Moreover we will investigate possible improvements of the systems whenever we discover vulnerabilities.
• For the automatic verification we will use existing tools from model checking, static analysis, and theorem proving, e.g. OFMC, ProVerif and SPASS. We also consider combining, adapting and augmenting tools and their languages for our specific domain.
• Compositional reasoning: given a number of components that are secure in isolation---is their composition to a larger system also secure? We will identify a realistic set of conditions that we can require from the components so that all possible compositions of the components are secure as well.
• Modern e-ID solutions protect the privacy of users, e.g. using zero-knowledge proofs. We will develop new methods for analyzing the privacy properties of the system with automated methods, e.g. that malicious servers cannot gather more information about their users than they are supposed to obtain.

The PhD students will be involved in all four parts in collaboration with the other participants in the project.

Requirements
Candidates must have a master degree in computer science, applied mathematics, or equivalent academic qualifications. Preference will be given to candidates who can document experience with computer security, formal methods, and automated verification. Furthermore, good command of the English language and the ability to collaborate in a research team are essential.

Approval and Enrolment
The scholarship for the PhD degree is subject to academic approval, and the candidate will be enrolled in the ITMAN Graduate School Programme of DTU Informatics. Information about the general requirements for enrolment and the general planning of the scholarship studies is included in the general rules at DTU, which may be obtained here.

Salary and appointment terms
The salary and appointment terms are consistent with the current Danish rules for PhD degree students.

Further Information
Further information concerning the project can be obtained from Assistant Professor Sebastian Mödersheim.

Further information concerning the application is available at the DTU Informatics PhD homepage, the DTU Informatics Graduate School ITMAN homepage or by contacting the responsible ITMAN Graduate School coordinator: Ulla Jensen, DTU Informatics, phone: + 45 4525 3359.

Application
Apply online via Apply Online button below. Applications must be submitted in English and we must have your online application by August 27, 2012. Please open the link in the red bar below: "apply online" ("ansøg online").

Applications must include:

• application (letter of motivation)
• CV
• documentation of a relevant completed M.Sc. or M.Eng.-degree
• course and grade list of bachelor and master degrees
• Calculation of the weighted grade average, see guidelines here