CRYPTOLOGY – TCG Crest

Overview

The research program in the Cryptography and Security group at IAI TCG-CREST focuses on the theoretical as well as the applied aspect of Cryptology and Security research. The long-term objective of the group is to carry out top-notch academic and industrial research in the field of theoretical and applied Cryptography and Security and to bring out the future generation of leading crypto experts by means of providing rigorous training in the field. Alongside, the plan is to carry out successful collaboration with industries and government agencies for innovation and international accolades.

Core Research Areas

Light-Weight Cryptography
Provable Security of Symmetric Key Cryptography
Design and Analysis of Authenticated Ciphers
Leakage Resilient Modes of Operations
Symmetric Searchable Encryption
Secure Cloud Computing
Blockchain Technology
Quantum Cryptography and Quantum Computation
Post-Quantum Cryptography
White-Box Cryptography

Members

Faculty

Rana Barua, Emiretus Professor
Joined the Institute in 2020
Email: rana.barua[at]tcgcrest.org
Research Areas: Post-Quantum Cryptography, Attribute-based Encryption
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=41BgV6AAAAAJ

Arpita Maitra, Associate Professor, PhD (Jadavpur University)
Joined the Institute in 2020
Email: arpita.maitra[at]tcgcrest.org
Research Areas: Quantum Information and Quantum Cryptology
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=GbHINxsAAAAJ

Nilanjan Datta, Associate Professor, PhD (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata), 2017
Joined the Institute in 2020
Email: nilanjan.datta[at]tcgcrest.org
Research Areas: Lightweight Cryptography, Provable Security, Leakage Resilient Cryptology, Symmetric Searchable Encryption.
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bzgYT3sAAAAJ

Avijit Dutta, Assistant Professor, PhD (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata), 2020
Joined the Institute in 2023 (as Assistant Professor), 2020 (as Post Doctoral Fellow)
Email: avijit.dutta[at]tcgcrest.org
Research Areas: Provable Security, Lightweight Cryptography, Post-Quantum Cryptology.
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BhPLw0UAAAAJ

Avik Chakraborti, Assistant Professor, PhD (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata), 2018
Joined the Institute in 2022
Email: avik.chakraborti[at]tcgcrest.org
Research Areas: White-box Cryptography, Design and Analysis of Symmetric Key Modes, Hardware Security.
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=El2XKAYAAAAJ

Subhabrata Samajder, Assistant Professor, PhD (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata), 2017
Joined the Institute in 2023
Email: subhabrata.samajder[at]tcgcrest.org
Research Areas: Lattice-based Cryptology, Searchable Encryption, Symmetric key Cryptanalysis, E-voting.
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=FoJNBQYAAAAJ

Shion Samadder Chaudhury, Assistant Professor, PhD (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata), 2020
Joined the Institute in 2024 (as Assistant Professor), 2021 (as Post Doctoral Fellow)
Email: shion.chaudhury[at]tcgcrest.org
Research Areas: Quantum and Post-Quantum Cryptology, Matroids, Secret Sharing.
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bBCcn3wAAAAJ

Post Doctoral Fellow

Laltu Sardar, PhD (Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata, India), 2021
Joined the Institute in 2022
Email: laltu.sardar[at]tcgcrest.org
Field of Research: Searchable Encryption, Block-chain Technology and Applications.
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=v2UrKigAAAAJ

PhD Students

2020

Bibhas Chandra Das (M. Tech from ISI, Kolkata)
Degree Granting Institute: Chennai Mathematical Institute
Supervisor: Nilanjan Datta
Field of Research: Searchable Symmetric Encryption

2021

Sougata Mondal (M. Tech from ISI, Kolkata)
Degree Granting Institute: Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI)
Supervisor: Nilanjan Datta
Field of Research: Leakage Resilient Cryptology

Shreya Dey (M.Sc from Calcutta University)
Degree Granting Institute: Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI)
Supervisor: Avijit Dutta
Field of Research: Provable Security

2022

Hrithik Nandi (M.Sc from RKMVERI, Belur)
Degree Granting Institute: Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI)
Supervisor: Avijit Dutta
Field of Research: Provable Security

Mriganka Dey (M.Sc from Presidency University)
Degree Granting Institute: Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI)
Supervisor: Subhabrata Samajder and Rana Barua
Field of Research: Post-Quantum Cryptology

Sajani Kundu (M.Sc from Calcutta University)
Degree Granting Institute: Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI)
Supervisor: Avik Chakraborti
Field of Research: Whitebox Cryptology

Sayantan Ganguly (M.Sc in Mathematics)
Degree Granting Institute: Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI)
Supervisor: Shion Samadder Chaudhury
Field of Research: Secret Sharing

2023

Md Alamgir Alam (M.Sc from Presidency University)
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisor: Avik Chakraborti
Field of Research: White-box Cryptography

Nikita Dey (M.Sc from Presidency University)
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisor: Avijit Dutta
Field of Research: Post-Quantum Cryptography

Bishakha Sarkar (M.Sc from Tezpur University)
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisor: Subhabrata Samajder
Field of Research: Design and Implementation of Post-Quantum Cryptology

2024

Amlan Sinha (M.Sc from RKMVERI, Belur)
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisor: Nilanjan Datta

Barnima Ghoshal (M.Sc from Calcutta University)
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisors: Shion Samadder Chaudhury and Subhabrata Samajder

Md Sariful Molla (M.Sc from Presidency University)
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisors: Subhabrata Samajder and Avik Chakraborti

Subhadeep Das (M.Sc from Calcutta University)
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisor: Shion Samadder Chaudhury

2025

Aniket Ghara
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisor: Arpita Maitra

Prokash Kumar Kundu (Urmi)
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisor: Arpita Maitra

Suman Pal
Degree Granting Institute: Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)
Supervisor: Arpita Maitra

Student Achievements

Sougata Mandal was awarded a travel grant worth €1,600 by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) to present his paper “Context-Committing Security of Leveled Leakage-Resilient AEAD” at FSE 2025 held in Rome.
Bibhas Chandra Dey had a paper titled “Fault-tolerant Verifiable Dynamic SSE with Forward and Backward Privacy” accepted at IACR Communications in Cryptology, 2024.
Shreya Dey delivered an invited research talk at the First Kolkata Crypto Day Seminar held at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata on December 08, 2024.
Sougata Mandal had done a 3-month (Aug – Oct, 2024) research internship at Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Gregor Leander. Complete travel and local support were provided by the host University.
Hrithik Nandi presented his paper titled “Efficient Variants of TNT with BBB Security” at ProvSec 2024 (Gold Coast, Australia).
Sougata Mandal had a single-author paper “Tweakable ForkCipher from Ideal Block Cipher” at IACR Communications in Cryptology, 2024.
Sougata Mandal had a paper “FEDT: Forkcipher-based Leakage-resilient Beyond-birthday-secure AE” at IACR Communications in Cryptology, 2024.
Shreya Dey was awarded a travel grant worth €2,500 by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) to present the paper “Cascading Four Round LRW1 is Beyond Birthday Bound Secure” at FSE 2024 held in Belgium.
Shreya Dey, Sougata Mandal had a paper “Cascading Four Round LRW1 is Beyond Birthday Bound Secure” accepted at IACR Transactions of Symmetric Cryptology (ToSC), 2024.
Sougata Mandal had a paper “On the security of triplex-and multiplex-type constructions with smaller tweaks” accepted at INDOCRYPT 2023.

Recent Activities & Achievements

We have recently organized two major International events:
- ASIACRYPT 2024 Hosted at Dhana-Dhanya Auditorium, Total Participants: 300 (includes 125 foreign delegates).
- Asian Symmetric Key Workshop – ASK 2024 Hosted at TCG CREST, Kolkata, Total Participants: 100 (includes 35 foreign delegates). Nilanjan Datta served as the Program Chair, and Avik Chakraborti, Avijit Dutta and Subhabrata Samajder served as the Organizing Chairs of the workshop.
Nilanjan Datta was added to the Editorial Board of FSE 2026 and IACR Transactions on Symmetric key Cryptology (ToSC 2025/2026).
Avijit Dutta was selected to the Editorial Board of FSE 2024, 2025, and IACR Transactions on Symmetric key Cryptology (ToSC 2022/2023 and 2023/2024).
Avik Charaborti and Avijit Dutta were added to the Program Committee of ASIACRYPT 2024.
Avik Chakraborti has been selected as the treasurer and Nilanjan Datta has been selected as the assistant secretary of Cryptology Research Society of India.

Recent Publications

Y. Chen, Avijit Dutta, A. Jha, M. Nandi, Towards Optimally Secure Deterministic Authenticated Encryption Schemes, IACR EUROCRYPT 2025.
Bibhas Chandra Das, Nilanjan Datta, A. Majumder, Subhabrata Samajder, Fault-tolerant Verifiable Dynamic SSE with Forward and Backward Privacy, IACR Communications in Cryptology, vol. 1, no. 4, 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.62056/ayl5w4fe-3.
Sougata Mandal, Tweakable ForkCipher from Ideal Block Cipher, IACR Communications in Cryptology, Volume 1, Issue 3: 42, 2024
R. Bhaumik, B. Chakraborty, W. Choi, Avijit Dutta, J. Govinden, Y. Shen: The Committing Security of MACs with Applications to Generic Composition. IACR CRYPTO 2024.
C. Dhar, J. Ethan, R. Jejurikar, M. Khairallah, E. List, Sougata Mandal: Context Committing Security of Levelled Leakage-Resilient AEAD. IACR Transaction on Symmetric Cryptology (ToSC 2024).
E. Andreeva, A. Bogdanov, Nilanjan Datta, A. Luykx, B. Mennink, M. Nandi, E. Tischhauser, K. Yasuda: The COLM Authenticated Encryption Scheme. Journal of Cryptology, 2024 (doi: 10.1007/s00145-024-09492-8).
Shion Samadder Chaudhuri, Efficient Quantum Multi-Authority Attribute-based Encryption And Generalizations, Quantum Information Processing (2024).
Ritam Bhaumik, Wonseok Choi, Avijit Dutta, Cuauhtemoc Mancillas Lopez, Hrithik Nandi, Yaobin Shen, Efficient Variants of TNT with BBB Security, Provsec (2024).
Nilanjan Datta, Avijit Dutta, E. List, Sougata Mandal, FEDT: Forkcipher Based Leakage Resilient AE, IACR Communications in Cryptology, Volumn 1, Issue 2 (2024).
N. Datta, S. Dey, A. Dutta, S. Mandal: Cascading Four Round LRW1 is Beyond Birthday Bound Secure. IACR Transactions of Symmetric Cryptology (ToSC 2023).
B. Cogliati, A. Dutta, M. Nandi, J. Patarin, A. Saha: Proof of Mirror Theory for a Wide Range of \xi_max. Eurocrypt 2023.
N. Datta, A. Dutta, M. Nandi, S. Talnikar: Tight Multi-user Security of DbHtS. IACR Transactions of Symmetric Cryptology (ToSC 2023). Doi: https://doi.org/10.46586/tosc.v2023.i1.192-223
N. Datta, A. Dutta, E. List, S. Mandal: On the Security of Triplex- and Multiplex-type Constructions with Smaller Tweaks. INDOCRYPT 2023.
N. Datta, A. Dutta, S. Kundu: Tight Security Bound of 2k-LightMAC Plus. INDOCRYPT 2023.
B. Chakraborty, N. Datta, M. Nandi: Designing Full-Rate Sponge based AEAD Modes. INDOCRYPT 2023.
S. S. Chaudhury, A. Samanta, A. Maitra: Quantum Attribute-based Encryption – A Comprehensive Study. Quantum Information Processing 2023.
N. Datta, A. Dutta, C. Mancilias Lopez: LightMAC: Fork it and make it faster. Advances in Mathematics of Communications 2023.
A. Bhattacharjee, R. Bhaumik, A. Dutta, M. Nandi, A. Ray Chaudhuri: BBB Security for 5-Round Even-Mansour-Based Key-Alternating Feistel Ciphers. Design Codes and Cryptography, 2023.
A. Bhattacharjee, R. Bhaumik, A. Dutta, E. List: Beyond Birthday Bound Secure Permutation Based AE in Faulty Nonce Model. ICICS’23.
A. Dutta, M. Nandi, S. Talnikar: Tight Security Analysis of the Public Permutation-Based PMAC Plus. Advances in Mathematics of Communications 2023.
L. Sardar, B. Sengupta, S. Ruj: Efficient Keyword Search on Encrypted Dynamic Cloud Data. American Institute of Mathematical Sciences 2023. Doi: 10.3934/amc.2022101
N. Datta, A. Dutta, S. Ghosh: INT-RUP Security of SAEB and TinyJAMBU. INDOCRYPT 2022.
S. S. Chaudhury, S. Dutta: Quantum Multi-Secret Sharing via Trap Codes and Discrete Quantum Walks. Quantum Information Processing (2022).
A. Bhattacharjee, A. Chakraborti, N. Datta, C. Mancillas-López, M. Nandi: ISAP+: ISAP with Fast Authentication. INDOCRYPT 2022.
J. Basak, K. Chakraborty, A. Maitra, S. Maitra: A Proposal for Device Independent Probabilistic Quantum Oblivious Transfer. INDOCRYPT 2022.
B. Chatterjee, R. Parikh, A. Maitra, S. Maitra, A. Roy: Revisiting BoolTest – On Randomness testing using Boolean functions. INDOCRYPT 2022.
A. Dutta, M. Nandi, A. Saha: Proof of Mirror Theory for \xi_max=2, IEEE Transactions of Information Theory 2022.
A. Bhattacharjee, A. Dutta, E. List, M. Nandi: CENCPP* – Beyond-birthday-secure Encryption from Public Permutations, Design Codes and Cryptography 2022.
Y. Chen, A. Dutta, M. Nandi: Multi-user BBB Security of Public Permutations Based MAC, Cryptography and Communications 2022.
N. Datta, A. Dutta, K. Dutta: Improved Security Bound of (E/D)WCDM, IACR Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology 2021 (4): 138 – 176. [Link]
T. SAPV, D. Bera, A. Maitra, S. Maitra: Quantum Algorithms for Cryptographically Significant Boolean Functions, Springer Briefs in Computer Science, Springer, 2021, ISSN 2191-5768, ISBN 978-981-16-3060-6. [Link]
A. Dutta, M. Nandi, S. Talnikar: Permutation Based EDM: An Inverse Free BBB Secure PRF. IACR Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology 2021 (2): 31-70.
A. Chakraborti, N. Datta, A.Jha, C.M. Lopez, M. Nandi: tHyENA: Making HyENA Even Smaller. INDOCRYPT 2021: 26 – 48. [Link]
R. Anand, A. Maitra, S. Maitra, C. S. Mukherjee, S. Mukhopadhyay: Quantum Resource Estimation for FSR based Symmetric Ciphers & Related Grovers Attacks. INDOCRYPT 2021: 179 – 198. [Link]

A. Chakraborti, N. Datta, A.Jha, C.M. Lopez, M. Nandi, Y. Sasaki: Elastic-Tweak: A Framework for Short Tweak Tweakable Block Cipher. INDOCRYPT 2021: 114 – 137. [Link]

A. Dutta: Minimizing the Two-Round Tweakable Even-Mansour Cipher. IACR ASIACRYPT (1) 2020: 601-629

R. Anand, A. Maitra, S. Mukhopadhyay: Grover on SIMON, Quantum Information Processing, Vol-19, number-340, (2020), (SCIE, Impact Factor 2.283). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11128-020-02844-w.
A. Dutta, M. Nandi: BBB Secure Nonce Based MAC Using Public Permutations. AFRICACRYPT 2020, pp 172-191 (2020).
R. Anand, A. Maitra, S. Mukhopadhyay: Evaluation of Quantum Cryptanalysis on SPECK, Progress in Cryptology INDOCRYPT 2020, pp 395-413. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 12578, Springer.