Markus Schofnegger

Markus Schofnegger

Cryptography & Privacy

Horizen Labs

Biography

I’m a cryptographer at Horizen Labs in the area of efficient zero-knowledge proof systems. Before that, I was a postdoctoral researcher at Graz University of Technology, working at the IAIK. My research interests include the design and analysis of symmetric primitives and the application in modern zero-knowledge proof systems such as STARKs and SNARKs. In this context, I was also working on arithmetization-oriented hash functions including Poseidon and Griffin, which are both specifically tailored towards modern zero-knowledge use cases.

Interests

  • Zero-knowledge proof systems
  • Symmetric cryptography
  • Domain-specific designs for ZK, MPC, FHE, and signature applications
  • Efficient implementations

Education

  • PhD in Computer Science/Cryptography, 2022

    Graz University of Technology

  • MSc in Computer Science, 2018

    Graz University of Technology

  • BSc in Computer Science, 2015

    Graz University of Technology

Recent Publications

Note: The standard convention in this discipline is to list the authors in alphabetical order.

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A New Feistel Approach Meets Fluid-SPN: Griffin for Zero-Knowledge Applications

Zero-knowledge (ZK) applications form a large group of use cases in modern cryptography, and recently gained in popularity due to novel …
lorenzo grassi, yonglin hao, christian rechberger, markus schofnegger, roman walch, qingju wang
PDF Code

Influence of the Linear Layer on the Algebraic Degree in SP-Networks

We consider SPN schemes, i.e., schemes whose non-linear layer is defined as the parallel application of t>=1 independent S-Boxes …
carlos cid, lorenzo grassi, aldo gunsing, reinhard lüftenegger, christian rechberger, markus schofnegger
PDF Code

From Farfalle to Megafono via Ciminion: The PRF Hydra for MPC Applications

Ciminion is an MPC-friendly pseudo-random function (PRF) recently proposed at Eurocrypt’21. As in the case of other MPC-friendly …
lorenzo grassi, morten øygarden, markus schofnegger, roman walch
PDF Code

Practical key recovery attacks on FlexAEAD

FlexAEAD is a block cipher candidate submitted to the NIST Lightweight Cryptography standardization project, based on repeated …
orr dunkelman, maria eichlseder, daniel kales, nathan keller, gaëtan leurent, markus schofnegger
PDF

Small MACs from Small Permutations

The concept of lightweight cryptography has gained in popularity recently, also due to various competitions and standardization efforts …
maria eichlseder, ahmet can mert, christian rechberger, markus schofnegger
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Talks

Proving Resistance Against Infinitely Long Subspace Trails: How to Choose the Linear Layer

Designing cryptographic permutations and block ciphers using a substitution-permutation network (SPN) approach where the nonlinear part …
Mar 24, 2022 Athens, Greece
PDF Video

Poseidon: A New Hash Function for Zero-Knowledge Proof Systems

The area of practical computational integrity proof systems, like SNARKs, STARKs, Bulletproofs, is seeing a very dynamic development …
Aug 11, 2021 Vancouver, Canada (Virtual Event)
Slides Video

An Algebraic Attack on Ciphers with Low-Degree Round Functions: Application to Full MiMC

Algebraically simple PRFs, ciphers, or cryptographic hash functions are becoming increasingly popular, for example due to their …
Dec 8, 2020 Daejeon, South Korea (Virtual Event)
Slides Video

On a Generalization of Substitution-Permutation Networks: The HADES Design Strategy

Keyed and unkeyed cryptographic permutations often iterate simple round functions. Substitution-permutation networks (SPNs) are an …
May 13, 2020 Zagreb, Croatia (Virtual Event)
Video

Algebraic Cryptanalysis of Variants of Frit

Frit is a cryptographic 384-bit permutation recently proposed by Simon et al. and follows a novel design approach for built-in …
Aug 14, 2019 Waterloo, Canada
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Teaching

I have been involved as a lecturer in the following courses at Graz University of Technology:

During my time at the university, I have also been supervising bachelor and master theses.

Contact