
Kenny Paterson
Special guest
Kenny joined the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich in April 2019. Founder and Head of the Applied Cryptography Group; Associate Department Head in 2021 and 2022; Department Head from 1 January 2023.
Research over the last two decades mostly in the area of Cryptography, with a strong emphasis on the analysis of deployed cryptographic systems and the development of provably secure solutions to real-world cryptographic problems.
Co-founder of the Real World Cryptography series of workshops to support the development of this broad area and to strengthen the links between academia and industry.
Kenny Paterson has been a guest on 1 episode.
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Episode 22: Three Lessons from Threema: Breaking a Secure Messenger!
January 16th, 2023 | 52 mins 12 secs
secure messaging
Threema is a Swiss encrypted messaging application. It has more than 10 million users and more than 7000 on-premise customers. Prominent users of Threema include the Swiss Government and the Swiss Army, as well as the current Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz. Threema has been widely advertised as a secure alternative to other messengers.
Kenny, Kien and Matteo from the ETH Zurich Applied Cryptography Group present seven attacks against the cryptographic protocols used by Threema, in three distinct threat models. All the attacks are accompanied by proof-of-concept implementations that demonstrate their feasibility in practice.