Canetti wins RSA Conference award for contributions to cryptography

Ran Canetti, professor of computer science and director of the Center for Reliable Information Systems and Cyber Security

RSA Conference, one of the world’s largest professional gatherings for information technology security, announced Tuesday that Boston University computer science professor Ran Canetti is one of five laureates honored this year for substantive contributions to the field.

Canetti, who directs the Center for Reliable Information Systems and Cyber Security within the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, shares this year’s Award for Excellence in the Field of Mathematics with Professor Rafail Ostrovsky from UCLA for his scholarly work on novel models and protocol notions for secure computation tasks.

According to the RSA Conference, Canetti’s academic work paved the way for a number of promising developments in both the study and practice of cryptography.

“Professor Canetti made crucial contributions to Universally Composable security, limitations of random oracle model and HMAC function,” the prize committee said in a release. “Jointly with Professor Ostrovsky, they made essential contributions to proactive security, efficient zero-knowledge protocols, novel signature schemes, and encryption schemes with additional properties, including deniable encryption,”

Azer Bestavros, a professor of computer science at BU and the founding director of the Hariri Institute, said that Canetti’s formidable influence in the field makes the University a well-positioned player in cryptography and cybersecurity.

“Ran’s work — running the gamut from foundational results (UC) to the practical Internet protocols that makes e-commerce possible (HMAC) — and his passion for connecting computing to law and public policy are inspiring,” Bestavros said. “It is a privilege to have him as a colleague in the computer science department and at the Institute.”

Canetti said he was honored to receive the RSA Conference award.

“I am especially proud to be one of a cohort of winners that advanced cyber-security and cyber-freedom on very different fronts: scientific, industrial, government, and social,” he said. “Indeed, it is only when all these aspects of cyber-security are taken into account together that we can make real progress towards a more open, free, educated and secure society.”

Canetti and Ostrovsky join three others for RSA Conference Awards in other non-scholastic fields:

U.S. Navy Admiral Michael Rogers for excellence in public policy;
Security expert Michael Assante for excellence in information security; and
Former political prisoner and African National Congress communications officer Tim Jenkin for excellence in humanitarian service.