The DF&C (Digital Forensic & Cryptanalysis) Laboratory, led by Professor Kim Jong Sung of the Department of Information Security and Cryptography, College of Science and Technology, Kookmin University (President Jeong Seung Ryul), has received international recognition for its research achievements in cryptographic circuit optimization.

Professor Kim Jong Sung's research team at Kookmin University (Ph.D. candidates Jeon Yong Jin and Baek Seung Jun, Dr. Kim Gi Yoon, Professor Kim Jong Sung) presented optimization methods and application results for various S-box circuits at the Conference on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (CHES), held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from September 14 (Sun) to 18 (Thu). The corresponding paper was also published in the international journal IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES).

CHES, the world's most prestigious conference in cryptographic engineering held annually since 1999, gathered approximately 500 cryptographers from academia, industry, and research institutes worldwide this year to exchange opinions on new findings. The accepted paper, titled ‘A Framework for Generating S-Box Circuits with Boyar–Peralta Algorithm-Based Heuristics, and Its Applications to AES, SNOW3G, and Saturnin’, proposes a novel method to implement the core circuits (S-boxes) used in international standard cryptosystems like AES, SNOW3G, and Saturnin in a simpler and more efficient manner. Experiments demonstrated the highest efficiency level to date, and this is expected to contribute to improving the performance of various cryptographic systems.

Professor Kim Jong Seong emphasized, “This research is highly significant because it can meet the practical demands required in various application fields such as autonomous vehicles (ADAS), 5G, drones, and smart devices by optimizing the circuits of major algorithms, including the international standard AES.”

This research was conducted as part of the ‘University ICT Research Center (ITRC)’ support project by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP), specifically as a research task of the ‘Edge Cloud Data Security Research Center’.

Meanwhile, the DF&C (Digital Forensic & Cryptanalysis) Lab, led by Professor Kim Jong Sung, conducts research on digital forensics and cryptanalysis. It participates in various competitions and academic conferences annually, consistently achieving outstanding results.