Research

My main research focus is on post-quantum cryptography, especially multivariate cryptography and code-based cryptography, and from recently also lattice-based cryptography. I have also done a bit of symmetric cryptography, Boolean functions and non-associative algebraic structures.

Publications

Krijn Reijnders, Simona Samardjiska and Monika Trimoska. Hardness estimates of the Code Equivalence Problem in the Rank Metric accepted in Designs, Codes and Cryptography, 2023
Thomas Aulbach, Simona Samardjiska and Monika Trimoska. Practical key-recovery attack on MQ-Sign. Cryptology ePrint Archive https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/432
Ran, L., Samardjiska, S., Trimoska, M. (2023). Algebraic Algorithm for the Alternating Trilinear Form Equivalence Problem. In: Esser, A., Santini, P. (eds) Code-Based Cryptography. CBCrypto 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14311. Springer, Cham.

Julius Hermelink, Erik M˚artensson, Simona Samardjiska, Peter Pessl, and Gabi Dreo Rodosek. Belief propagation meets lattice reduction: Security estimates for error-tolerant key recovery from decryption errors. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, 2023(4) 287-317
Thomas Aulbach, Fabio Campos, Juliane Kr¨amer, Simona Samardjiska, and Marc St¨ottinger. Separating oil and vinegar with a single trace. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, 2023(3) 221-245
Tung Chou, Ruben Niederhagen, Edoardo Persichetti, Tovohery Hajatiana Randrianarisoa, Krijn Reijnders, Simona Samardjiska, and Monika Trimoska. Take your MEDS: Digital Signatures from Matrix Code Equivalence. In AFRICACRYPT 2023, LNCS. Springer, 2023
Krijn Reijnders, Simona Samardjiska and Monika Trimoska. Hardness estimates of the Code Equivalence Problem in the Rank Metric Proceedings of The Twelfth International Workshop on Coding and Cryptography - WCC 2022, March 7 - 11, 2022, Rostock (Germany)
A. Bay, Z. Erkin, J. -H. Hoepman, S. Samardjiska and J. Vos. Practical Multi-Party Private Set Intersection Protocols/ in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 17, pp. 1-15, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TIFS.2021.3118879
Mike Hamburg, Julius Hermelink, Robert Primas, Simona Samardjiska, Thomas Schamberger, Silvan Streit, Emanuele Strieder, Christine van Vredendaal: Chosen Ciphertext k-Trace Attacks on Masked CCA2 Secure Kyber. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, 2021(4), 88–113. https://doi.org/10.46586/tches.v2021.i4.88-113
Powers of Two: The Information Universe ― Information as the Building Block of Everything 1st ed. 2021 Edition by Edwin A. Valentijn (Editor), Robbert Dijkgraaf (Foreword)
Thom Wiggers and Simona Samardjiska: Practically Solving LPN in 2021 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory - ISIT 2021, to appear. [pdf][slides][bibtex]
Norman Lahr, Ruben Niederhagen, Richard Petri, and Simona Samardjiska: Side channel information set decoding using iterative chunking in Advances in Cryptology – ASIACRYPT 2020. LNCS, volume 12491. Springer International Publishing, 2020, pp. 881–910. [pdf][slides][bibtex]
Simona Samardjiska, Paolo Santini, Edoardo Persichetti, and Gustavo Banegas: A Reaction Attack Against Cryptosystems Based on LRPC Codes in Progress in Cryptology – LATINCRYPT 2019. Ed. by P. Schwabe and N. Thériault. Vol. 11774. LNCS. Springer, 2019, pp. 197–216.
Ming-Shing Chen, Andreas Hülsing, Joost Rijneveld, Simona Samardjiska, and Peter Schwabe: SOFIA: MQ-based signatures in the QROM, in Public-Key Cryptography – PKC 2018, LNCS 10770, pp. 3-33, Springer, 2018.
Simona Samardjiska and Danilo Gligoroski: Quadratic Permutations, Compelte Mappings and Mutually Orthogonal Latin Squares, Mathematica Slovaca Vol. 67, 5, (2017) pp. 1-18.
Ming-Shing Chen, Andreas Hülsing, Joost Rijneveld, Simona Samardjiska and Peter Schwabe: From 5-pass MQ-based identification to MQ-based signatures, Advances in Cryptology – ASIACRYPT 2016, LNCS 10032, pp. 135-165, Springer, 2016.
Simona Samardjiska and Danilo Gligoroski: An encryption scheme based on Random Split of St-Gen codes, 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), pp. 800-804, IEEE, 2016.
Danilo Gligoroski and Simona Samardjiska A Digital Signature Scheme Based on Random Split of St-Gen Codes, Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2016/391, 2016
Danilo Gligoroski and Simona Samardjiska: Semantic Security and Key-Privacy with Random Split of St-Gen Codes, CiE 2016, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 9709, pp. 105–114, Springer, 2016.
Hristina Mihajloska, Danilo Gligoroski and Simona Samardjiska: Reviving the Idea of Incremental Cryptographyfor the Zettabyte era - Use case: Incremental Hash Functions Based on SHA-3, iNetSec 2015, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 9591, pp. 97–111, Springer, 2016.
Simona Samardjiska and Danilo Gligoroski: Approaching Maximum Embedding Efficiency on Small Covers Using Staircase-Generator Codes, 2015 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), pp. 2752-2756 IEEE, 2015.
Jean-Charles Faugère, Danilo Gligoroski, Ludovic Perret, Simona Samardjiska and Enrico Thomae: A Polynomial-Time Key-Recovery Attack on MQQ Cryptosystems, Public-Key Cryptography - PKC 2015, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 9020, pp. 150-174 Springer, 2015.
Simona Samardjiska and Danilo Gligoroski: Linearity Measures for Multivariate Cryptography, SECURWARE 2014, The Eighth International Conference on Emerging Security Information, Systems and Technologies pp. 157--166, International Academy, Research and Industry Association (IARIA), 2014.
Danilo Gligoroski, Simona Samardjiska, Håkon Jacobsen and Sergey Bezzateev, McEliece in the world of Escher, Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2014/360, 2014
Danilo Gligoroski, Hristina Mihajloska, Simona Samardjiska, Håkon Jacobsen, Rune Erlend Jensen and Mohamed El-Hadedy: π-Cipher: Authenticated Encryption for Big Data, NORDSEC 2014, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 8788, 2014, pp 110-128.
Simona Samardjiska and Danilo Gligoroski: Left MQQs whose left parastrophe is also quadratic, Commentationes Mathematicae Universitatis Carolinae Vol. 53, 3, pp. 397--421, 2012.
Simona Samardjiska, Yanling Chen and Danilo Gligoroski: Algorithms for Construction of Multivariate Quadratic Quasigroups (MQQs) and Their Parastrophe Operations in Arbitrary Galois Fields, Journal of Information Assurance and Security, Vol. 7 (2012) pp. 164--172.
Simona Samardjiska: On the Parastrophes of Polynomial Binary Quasigroups, Mahtematica Balkanica, Vol. 26, (2012), Fasc. 3-4, pp. 389-398.
Simona Samardjiska and Danilo Gligoroski: Towards a Secure Multivariate Identity-Based Encryption, ICT Innovations 2012, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing Vol 207, pp. 59--69 Springer 2012.
Danilo Gligoroski and Simona Samardjiska, The Multivariate Probabilistic Encryption Scheme MQQ-ENC, Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2012/328, 2012
Haakon Jacobsen, Simona Samardjiska and Danilo Gligoroski: On the strong and weak keys in MQQ-SIG, ICT Innovations 2012, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing Vol 207, pp. 183-193 Springer 2012.
Simona Samardjiska, Yanling Chen and Danilo Gligoroski: Construction of Multivariate Quadratic Quasigroups (MQQs) in Arbitrary Galois Fields, 7th International Conference on Information Assurance and Security (IAS), IEEE conference proceedings 2011 pp. 314--319.
Simona Samardjiska and Danilo Gligoroski: Identity-Based Identification Schemes Using Left Multivariate Quasigroups, Norsk informasjonssikkerhetskonferanse - NISK 2011, Tapir Akad.Forlag 2011, pp. 19--30.
Simona Samardjiska: On Some Cryptographic Properties of the Polynomial Quasigroups, ICT Innovations 2010, Communications in Computer and Information Science Vol 83, pp. 1--10, Springer 2010. (Best Paper Award).
Smile Markovski, Vesna Dimitrova and Simona Samardjiska: Identity Sieves for Quasigroups, Quasigroups And Related Systems 2010, Vol. 18(2) pp. 149-164.

Standardization efforts

Tung Chou, Ruben Niederhagen, Edoardo Persichetti, Lars Ran, Tovohery Hajatiana Randrianarisoa, Krijn Reijnders, Simona Samardjiska, and Monika Trimoska, MEDS - Matrix Equivalence Digital Signature specifications. Submission to the Round 1 Additional Signatures in the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project[pdf][website]
Ming-Shing Chen, Andreas Hulsing, Joost Rijneveld, Simona Samardjiska, and Peter Schwabe. MQDSS specifications , April 2020. Version 2.1. Submission to the Round 2 of NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project[pdf][website]
Danilo Gligoroski, Hristina Mihajloska, Simona Samardjiska, Håkon Jacobsen, Mohamed El-Hadedy and Rune Erlend Jensen, π–Cipher v1.s CAESAR: Competition for authenticated encryption: Security, applicability, and robustness, 2014
Smile Markovski and Aleksandra Mileva, NaSHA - family of cryptographic hash functions - SHA-3 Submission and Round-1 candidate. Contributors - Boro Jakimovski (programmer) and Simona Samardjiska (programmer).

Invited Talks

Code-based cryptography – Post-quantum cryptography conference, PKI consortium, Amsterdam, November 2023
Making and Breaking PQ crypto "CICLO DE CONFERENCIAS DE LA MUJER EN LA CIENCIA", 31 August, 2023 Anahuac University, Mexico
Theoretical and practical hardness of some equivalence problems – CWI seminars March 2023

Algebraic algorithms for equivalence problems - SIAM AG 23-SIAM Conference on Applied Algebraic Geometry 2023, July Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Making and Breaking PQ crypto - CrossFyre 2022, University of Passau, October 2022
The NIST post-quantum standardization process - a few thoughts while waiting for the standard - Quantum Symposium, Dutch Banking Association (NVB), April 12th, 2022, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The Matrix Code Equivalence problem - Theoretical and algorithmic aspects – ACCESS- Algebraic Coding and Cryptography on the East coast Seminar Series, March 1st, online event
Post Quantum Cryptography, QIHR – Governmental Quantum Innovation Hub, September 11, 2020, The Hague, The Netherlands
A ticking time bomb: Quantum computers, quantum cryptography and quantum-resistant cryptography, CogX panel, Global Leadership Summit and Festival of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology, June 9th, 2020, London, UK (virtual)
Quantum supremacy and Digital Security, Radboud reflects, Radboud University, November 4, 2019, Nijmegen, The Netherlands [slides]
Multivariate signatures - a post quantum alternative, Cyber Security seminar, EWI, TU Delft, October 29, 2019, Delft, The Netherlands [slides]
Quasigroups for cryptography, International Mathematical Conference on Quasigroups and Loops - LOOPS ’19, July 12, 2019, Budapest, Hungary [slides]
Algebraic techniques for cryptanalysis of rank-based cryptosystems, SIAM AG 19 -SIAM Conference on Applied Algebraic Geometry 2019, July 9-13, Bern, Switzerland [slides]
Quantum computers vs Digital Security, Radboud alumni workshop – Science that will change the world, Radboud University, December 15, 2018, Nijmegen, The Netherlands [slides]
Post-Quantum Secure Technologies, Cyber Security Week, October 4, 2018, The Hague, The Netherlands [slides]
Post-Quantum Cryptography, Science café Nijmegen, June 5, 2018, Nijmegen, The Netherlands [slides]
Post Quantum Cryptography for the IoT, RIOT summit, September 24, 2017, Berlin, Germany [slides]
Quantum computers vs Cryptography, Quantum Gravity Wednesday Seminar, Radboud University, May 10, 2017, Nijmegen, The Netherlands [slides]
MQDSS signatures – security, Crypto Working Group, March 24, 2017, Utrecht, The Netherlands [slides]
Covering Codes vs LPN, Digital Security Lunch Talk, Radboud University, March 17, Nijmegen, The Netherlands [slides]
Lessons learned doing my PhD… revisited, COINS PhD seminar, November 27, 2016, Bergen, Norway
What is a Quantum Computer and what are the Implications to Cryptography, Hacklab KiKa, September 2015, Skopje, Macedonia
Linear attacks in MQ cryptography, NIST seminar, March 27, 2015, Maryland, USA [slides]
Linear attacks in MQ cryptography, Part I and II, Selmer center, University of Bergen, Norway, February 3-4, 2015, Bergen, Norway [slides part I][slides part II]
Tools for anonymity, Autonomous Zone event, UKIM, Skopje, February 17, 2015, Skopje, Macedonia
A Polynomial-time Key-Recovery Attack on MQQ Cryptosystems, PolSys, LIP6, INRIA, Paris, November 25, 2014, Paris, France [slides]
McEliece in the world of Escher, CrIM'13, November 25-26, 2013, Oulu, Finland [slides]
Lessons learned doing my PhD, COINS PhD seminar, November 21, 2013, Stavanger, Norway
Polynomial Quasigroups of order 2^w, Department of Mathematics, University of Oulu, November 2011, Oulu, Finland [slides]

Activities

2023	Program committee of International Mathematical Conference on Quasigroups and Loops - LOOPS '23, Będlewo, Poland, 25th June - 2nd July 2023.
2022	Program committee of 12th International Workshop on Coding and Cryptography - WCC 2022, Rostock, Germany, March 7-11 2022 Organizing committee of the Lorentz Center Workshop "Post-Quantum Cryptography for Embedded Systems"

2021	Program committee of the 2nd International Workshop on Code-Based Cryptography - CBC Crypto 2021 Program committee of the 5th International Workshop on Security and Forensics of IoT IoT-SECFOR 2021 (in conjunction with The 16th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security ARES 2021) Program committee of the 13th ICT Innovations conference 2021, Macedonia, 2021. Organizing committee of the 40th Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques, EUROCRYPT 2021, Zagreb, Croatia Organizing committee of the The 10th International Workshop on Cryptography, Robustness, and Provably Secure Schemes for Female Young Researchers (CrossFyre) (co-located with EUROCRYPT 2021), Zagreb, Croatia Organizing committee of "Alice & Eve" - Workshop for women studying and working in Computing in the Netherlands
2020	Program committee of the 23rd International Conference on Practice and Theory of Public-Key Cryptography - PKC 2020 Program committee of the Cryptology and Network Security - CANS 2020 Program committee of the 1st International Workshop on Code-Based Cryptography - CBC Crypto 2020 Program committee of the 4th International Workshop on Security and Forensics of IoT IoT-SECFOR 2020 (in conjunction with The 15th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security ARES 2020) Program committee of the 12th ICT Innovations conference 2020, Macedonia, 2020 Organizing committee of the Lorentz Center Workshop "Post-Quantum Cryptography for Embedded Systems" (turned into virtual pre-event) Organizing committee of the 38th Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques, EUROCRYPT 2020, Zagreb, Croatia (turned into virtual) Organizing committee of the The 10th International Workshop on Cryptography, Robustness, and Provably Secure Schemes for Female Young Researchers (CrossFyre) (co-located with EUROCRYPT 2020), Zagreb, Croatia (cancelled) Organizing committee of the Summer School on real-world crypto and privacy, Šibenik, Croatia, 2020 (cancelled)
2019	Program committee of the Sixth International Conference on Cryptology and Information Security in Latin America - LATINCRYPT 2019, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, 2019 Program committee of the Best Cybersecurity Master Thesis Award in the Netherlands 2018-2019 Organizing committee of the Oxford Post-Quantum Cryptography Workshop, University of Oxford, 2019 Organizing committee of the Summer School on real-world crypto and privacy, Šibenik, Croatia, 2019
2018	Organizing committee of the 20th Conference on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems CHES 2018 Program committee of the 2nd International Workshop on Security and Forensics of IoT IoT-SECFOR 2018 Program committee of the Ninth International Conference on Post-Quantum Cryptography PQCRYPTO 2018 Program committee of the 10th International Conference ICT Innovations 2018
2017	Program committee of the Eighth International Conference on Post-Quantum Cryptography PQCRYPTO 2017 Organizing committee of the 21st Workshop on Elliptic Curve Cryptography, 2017 Program committee of the 9th International Conference ICT Innovations 2017 (- present) Board member of Radboud Women in Computer Science (RWoCS)
2016	Organizer of Summer school in Cryptographic engineering, FCSE, Skopje, Macedonia, 2016. (- present) Program committee of the International Conference on Informatics and Information Technologies CIIT 2016, Macedonia. Chair of the Self-evaluation committee at FCSE, Skopje, Macedonia.
2015	(- present) Program committee of the International Conference on Emerging Security Information, Systems and Technologies SECURWARE 2015. Organizing committee of the International Mathematical Conference on Quasigroups and Loops, LOOPS ’15, Ohrid, Macedonia, 2015. Problem selection committee and coordinator of the South Eastern European Mathematical Olympiad for University Students, SEEMOUS 2015, Ohrid, Macedonia, 2015.
2013	(- 2015) Member of COINS Research School of Computer and Information Security, Norway
2009	Deputy leader of the Macedonian team at the Balkan Mathematical Olympiad 2009, Kraguevac, R. Serbia, 2009.
2008	Organizing committee of the Balkan Mathematical Olympiad, Ohrid, Macedonia, 2008. Problem selection committee and coordinator of the Balkan Mathematical Olympiad, Ohrid, Macedonia, 2008.
2004	Organizing committee of the International mathematical competition for university students, Skopje, Macedonia, 2004. (- present) Member of the Association of Mathematicians in Macedonia

Research

Publications

Standardization efforts

Invited Talks

Activities

PhDs and postdocs

Projects