Using mathematics to revolutionize cybersecurity

Mathematical encryption methods, like RSA, have withstood the test of time and remain unbroken decades after their inception, thus proving that sophisticated mathematical tools are an effective way to protect sensitive information. With this truth in mind, Dr. Amit Sahai, of the University of California, Los Angeles, uses mathematics to improve cybersecurity. The problem is, hackers routinely infiltrate servers and steal important data and currently, our response to such attacks are only reactionary. Dr. Sahai’s research is working to prevent the attack from ever occurring. He is building new mathematical foundations to address cybersecurity threats that were traditionally seen as outside the scope of mathematical approaches. He hopes that like other transformative revolutions in the past, mathematics will provide the basis for revolutionary advancements in cybersecurity for the future.

Recently, Dr. Sahai and his team made major progress on such problems, in work that has been hailed as a “watershed moment for cryptography.” For the first time, Dr. Sahai developed mathematical methods for hiding secrets within software. With his incredibly intelligent team of Ph.D. students and postdoctoral research associates in addition to his many collaborations including some of his past Ph.D. students that have gone on to faculty positions at excellent universities like University of California, Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, Dr. Sahai’s work is advancing at an incredible rate. Thus, the combination of mathematical depth and the potential for long-term impact places Dr. Sahai’s work at the beginning of a cybersecurity paradigm shift.

Current research includes:

  • Functional Encryption and Secure Computation: The amount of sensitive data about us present in cyberspace is expanding at an incredible rate. On the one hand, this is frightening: an adversary who gains access to this data could learn about our travel habits, our families, and even our medical histories. On the other hand, this is also incredibly exciting: having so much data present allows humanity to progress, in ways big and small. We can make new medical discoveries by processing all the medical data present in cyberspace, and we can have services that recommend activities and products that we would like by comparing our histories to those of others. Dr. Sahai is working on ways to achieve the good that can come from processing all this data, while avoiding the bad that can come from an adversary learning too much about us. He is working on leveraging his groundbreaking work on hiding secrets in software to make progress toward this goal.

Dr. Sahai has always been fascinated by questions of feasibility. He is drawn to exploring the boundary between the possible and impossible. Drawn to the beauty of math, he has been compelled to answer questions that are both complicated and hold significant ramifications for society. Questions that appear as philosophical riddles about nature of knowledge often can be transformed into precise mathematical problems by viewing these questions through the lens of computation. Such questions have driven Dr. Sahai’s research career since its inception.

Professor Amit Sahai received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT in 2000. From 2000 to 2004, he was on the faculty at Princeton University; in 2004 he joined UCLA, where he currently holds the position of Professor of Computer Science. His research interests are in security and cryptography, and theoretical computer science more broadly. He has published more than 100 original technical research papers at venues such as the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), CRYPTO, and the Journal of the ACM. He has given a number of invited talks at institutions such as MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley, including the 2004 Distinguished Cryptographer Lecture Series at NTT Labs, Japan. Professor Sahai is the recipient of numerous honors; he was named an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow in 2002, received an Okawa Research Grant Award in 2007, a Xerox Foundation Faculty Award in 2010, a Google Faculty Research Award in 2010, and a 2012 Pazy Memorial Award.

Aside from research, in his free time, Dr. Sahai enjoys rock climbing and being outdoors.

Website: https://www.cs.ucla.edu/~sahai

 

Okawa Research Grant Award

Google Faculty Research Award

Pazy Memorial Award

National Science Foundation Frontier Award (Lead PI)

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow