Maria Elisabeth Oswald is an Austrian cryptographer known for her work on

side-channel attack In computer security, a side-channel attack is any attack based on extra information that can be gathered because of the fundamental way a computer protocol or algorithm is implemented, rather than flaws in the design of the protocol or algori ...

s including

power analysis Power analysis is a form of side channel attack in which the attacker studies the power consumption of a cryptographic hardware device. These attacks rely on basic physical properties of the device: semiconductor devices are governed by the ...

and on implementations of cryptosystems that are resistant to these attacks. She is a professor at the

University of Klagenfurt The University of Klagenfurt (german: Universität Klagenfurt or ''Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt'', AAU) is a federal Austrian research university and the largest research and higher education institution in the state of Carinthia. It has it ...

Education and career

Oswald is originally from

Wolfsberg, Carinthia Wolfsberg ( sl, Volšperk) is a town in Carinthia, Austria, the capital of Wolfsberg District. Geography The town is situated within the Lavanttal Alps, west of the Koralpe range in the valley of the Lavant River, a left tributary of the Drava ...

. She studied mathematics and information processing at the

Graz University of Technology Graz University of Technology (german: link=no, Technische Universität Graz, short ''TU Graz'') is one of five universities in Styria, Austria. It was founded in 1811 by Archduke John of Austria and is the oldest science and technology research ...

, completing her Ph.D. there in 2003 with the dissertation ''On Side-Channel Attacks and the Application of Algorithmic Countermeasures'' supervised by . She started working at the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

in 2006 as a lecturer, and later became Professor in Applied Cryptography there. She moved to Klagenfurt in 2019, describing herself as a "

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

refugee". She continues to be affiliated with the University of Bristol as an Honorary Professor. Since 2023 she has taken up a professorial position at the University of Birmingham.

Book

With Stefan Mangard and Thomas Popp, Oswald is a coauthor of the book ''Power Analysis Attacks: Revealing the Secrets of Smartcards'' (Springer, 2007).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Oswald, Elisabeth Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Austrian cryptographers Austrian women computer scientists Modern cryptographers Graz University of Technology alumni Academics of the University of Bristol Academic staff of the University of Klagenfurt Graz University of Technology