Applied Cryptography and Privacy Group

Advancing the frontiers of cryptography — from symmetric-key primitives to privacy-preserving protocols.

Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Research Areas

Symmetric-Key Cryptography

Designing symmetric-key primitives from general-purpose authenticated encryption schemes to special-purpose primitives such as HE-friendly ciphers.

Post-Quantum Cryptography

Designing and analyzing digital signature schemes based on the MPC-in-the-Head and VOLE-in-the-Head paradigms.

Privacy-Preserving Protocols

Construction of privacy-preserving protocols such as private set intersection (PSI), oblivious pseudorandom functions (OPRF), and privacy-preserving record linkage protocols.

News

  • Mar 2026
    New Applied Cryptography and Privacy Group is officially launched at Korea University!
  • Mar 2026
    Faculty Prof. Seongkwang Kim joins Korea University as an assistant professor.
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Join Us

We are looking for motivated graduate students (M.S. / Ph.D.) who are interested in cryptography and privacy.

If you are passionate about solving challenging problems at the field of cryptography and privacy, please reach out!

Members

Faculty

Prof. Seongkwang Kim

Seongkwang Kim

Assistant Professor, School of Cybersecurity, Korea University

Seongkwang Kim is an assistant professor at School of Cybersecurity in Korea University. Before joining Korea University in March 2026, he worked as a cryptography researcher at Samsung SDS, where he led research on post-quantum digital signatures, authenticated encryption, and privacy-preserving protocols.

He received his Ph.D. in information security from KAIST in 2022, under the supervision of professor Jooyoung Lee. His doctoral research focused on homomorphic encryption-friendly ciphers, transciphering frameworks, and provable security.

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Graduate Students

We Are Recruiting!

We are actively looking for motivated M.S. and Ph.D. students. If you are interested in cryptography and secure computation, please contact seongkwang-kim@korea.ac.kr.

Publications

Authors are listed in alphabetical order by last name, unless an asterisk (*) is indicated. Daggers (†) indicate co-first authors.

Academic Papers

  1. 1
    W. Chung, S. Hwang, S. Kim, B. Lee, and J. Lee. “Making GCM Great Again: Toward Full Security and Longer Nonces.” EUROCRYPT 2025.
  2. 2
    S. Kim, B. Lee, and M. Son. “Relaxed Vector Commitment for Shorter Signatures.” EUROCRYPT 2025.
  3. 3
    K. Han, S. Kim, and Y. Son. “Private Computation on Common Fuzzy Records.” PoPETs 2025.
  4. 4
    K. Han, S. Kim, B. Lee, and Y. Son. “Revisiting OKVS-based OPRF and PSI: Cryptanalysis and Better Construction.” ASIACRYPT 2024.
  5. 5
    *S. Kim†, J. Ha†, M. Son, B. Lee, D. Moon, J. Lee, S. Lee, J. Kwon, J. Cho, H. Yoon, and J. Lee. “AIM: Symmetric Primitive for Shorter Signatures with Stronger Security.” CCS 2023.
  6. 6
    J. Ha, S. Kim, B. Lee, J. Lee, and M. Son. “Rubato: Noisy Ciphers for Approximate Homomorphic Encryption.” EUROCRYPT 2022.
  7. 7
    J. Cho, J. Ha, S. Kim, B. Lee, J. Lee, J. Lee, D. Moon, and H. Yoon. “Transciphering Framework for Approximate Homomorphic Encryption.” ASIACRYPT 2021.
  8. 8
    *J. Ha, S. Kim, W. Choi, J. Lee, D. Moon, H. Yoon, and J. Cho. “Masta: An HE-friendly Cipher Using Modular Arithmetic.” IEEE Access, 2020.
  9. 9
    S. Kim, B. Lee, and J. Lee. “Tight Security Bounds for Double-Block Hash-then-Sum MACs.” EUROCRYPT 2020.

Preprints

  1. •
    S. Kim, B. Lee, and M. Son. “Shorter VOLE-in-the-Head-based Signatures from Vector Semi-Commitment.” Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2025/1077. 2025.

Contact

Applied Cryptography and Privacy Group

Address Room 319, Jung Woonoh IT & General Education Center, Korea University,
145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 02841,
Republic of Korea
Email seongkwang-kim@korea.ac.kr
Phone (+82)-2-3290-4899