Post Doc

**About the role**:
The quantum technology is supposed to allow the practical deployment of quantum key distribution (QKD) mechanisms such as BB84, E91, B92. Some of the latter protocols are experimentally tested in academic laboratories. On a more practical level, within initiatives such as EuroQCI, launched in 2019, the FranceQCI project aims at participating to the development of quantum communication networks within a wider European infrastructure.

Generally, the QKD experiments do not incorporate or do not focus on these phases based on conventional cryptographic schemes, and yet assume that the resulting protocol benefits from unconditional security.

The main goal of this study is to evaluate the security and the efficiency of security protocols that incorporate conventional cryptographic schemes in addition to a QKD mechanism.
Beyond theoretical approaches (Muckle and variants) that assume unconditional security for the QKD protocol, there exist no security proofs of security protocols based on QKD mechanisms.
Further, there exists no formal comparison between the different solutions based on a combination of QKD schemes and authenticated encryption schemes indexed with a secret key output by the key exchange phase.
Likewise, there exists no comparison of the different practical deployment of QKD mechanisms.
- Consequently, the main expected outcomes of this study are the following:

- Full security model to analyse QKD protocols combined with authenticated encryption algorithms against a quantum attacker.
- Full security analysis of the existing QKD protocols (combined with authenticated encryption algorithms) in order to compare them to each other.
- Practical implementation of various QKD protocols and authenticated encryption algorithms in a quantum communication network.

**About you**:
**Additional information**:
The post-doc will have the opportunity to participate in international conferences in cryptography and security to present his or her own results as well as to attend presentations from other researchers of the same field. The work and results obtained by the post-doc will also be presented internally at Orange but also during external academic seminars. Furthermore, the outcomes of the doctoral work may likely be valued through collaborative research projects done with international academic teams or groups.

**Department**:
Orange Innovation brings together the research and innovation activities and expertise of the Group's entities and countries. We work every day to ensure that Orange is recognized as an innovative operator by its customers and we create value for the Group and the Brand in each of our projects. With 740 researchers, thousands of marketers, developers, designers and data analysts, it is the expertise of our 6,000 employees that fuels this ambition every day.

Orange Innovation anticipates technological breakthroughs and supports the Group's countries and entities in making the best technological choices to meet the needs of our consumer and business customers.

The post-doc will join the Data Privacy Innovation team which is in charge of maintaining a high level of expertise in security for Orange Group regarding infrastructures and services. The research topics carried out by DPI include cryptography, data privacy, cloud security, system security, network security. The team is located in Caen and Châtillon. The post-doc will be incorporated to the Applied Crypto Group which gathers 9 researchers in cryptography and 4 PhD students.

**Contract**:
Post Doc