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Staff Profile

Dr Essam Ghadafi

Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security

Background

I am a senior lecturer in Cyber Security at Newcastle University as of the 1st of September 2022. I am the director of the MSc in Cyber Security and a member of the PhD progression panel.


Prior to joining Newcastle University, I was a senior lecturer at UWE Bristol. Prior to that, I worked with Prof Jens Groth as a research associate in the Information Security Group at University College London from 2015 to 2017. Prior to that, I was at the Computer Science Department at the University of Bristol between 2011 and 2015 as a post-doctoral researcher in the Cryptography Group and then as a teaching associate.


I obtained my PhD in Computer Science from the University of Bristol working on Cryptography & Information Security in 2012. My supervisors were: Prof Nigel Smart and Dr Bogdan Warinschi​.


I got my Master's (with Distinction) from the University of Bristol in 2007 and my MSc project on multi-authority key-agreement protocols won the best advanced MSc project in security award. 


Between obtaining my first degree and starting my Master's, I have worked for a number of years as a Programmer & System Analyst. 

Research

News:

  • I will be serving on the programme committee of ESORICS 2025 (1st Round Submission Deadline: 10th of January 2025)
  • I will be serving on the programme committee of Africacrypt 2025 (Submission Deadline: 1st March 2025)
  • My NCSC CyBoK project proposal is accepted for funding (October, 2024)
  • I will be serving on the programme committee of ESORICS 2024 (Submission Deadline: 19th of April)
  • I will be serving on the programme committee of DBSec 2024 (Submission Deadline: 5th of April)
  • I'll be at the University of Bristol from Jan 24-26, representing our MAFFIN project at the REPHRAIN workshop
  • Our REPHRAIN project (collaboration with University of Birmingham and De Montfort University) to tackle online harm is accepted for funding
  • I will be serving on the programme committee of Africacrypt 2024
  • New PhD student Arthur Moss (jointly supervised with Dr Farhad Merchant and Dr Rishad Shafik) has started with us in September 2023
  • New PhD student Cemile Boztas (jointly supervised with Dr Rasha Ibrahim) has started with us in September 2023
  • A paper accepted at the IEEE Internet of Things Journal



I am interested in various aspects of Cyber Security, and in particular Cryptography & Information Security. For more about my research, you can refer to my Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PGzWWUUAAAAJ&hl=en .


Example of past/recent topics/projects include, but not limited to:

  • Digital Cash
  • Structure-Preserving Cryptography
  • Direct Anonymous Attestation
  • Attribute-Based Cryptography
  • Proof systems and their applications
  • Signature schemes and related primitives (e.g. blind signatures, Group Signatures, Ring Signatures, etc.)
  • Public-Key Encryption
  • Post-Quantum Security 
  • Blockchains
  • Adversarial & Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning 


Note to potential PhD applicants:


While I am always keen and eager to supervise highly-motivated and hard-working PhD students, I will not be able to check and comment on CVs and other documents sent by email. The best way to approach me in this regard is to first ensure that your suggested topic/interest/proposal aligns with my research interests. Therefore, you should include a brief a personal statement summarising how you think our interests align and providing details of how you think you have the required background, e.g. what relevant courses have you studied or what projects you have worked on which are relevant to the proposal/topic you would like to pursue for your PhD. Please note that any funded studentships I have will be advertised publicly on the university portal and other known public channels.


Note: Any available funded opportunities (for a PhD or a post-doc) will be advertised through the university website and highlighted here. Currently, I do not have any funded opportunities unless they are officially announced on the university website.


Publications

  • Articles

  • Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

    • Ghadafi E. Short Structure-Preserving Signatures. In: Topics in Cryptology - CT-RSA. 2025, Springer.
    • Ghadafi E. Efficient Round-Optimal Blind Signatures in the Standard Model. In: Financial Cryptography and Data Security. 2025, Malta: Springer.
    • Ghadafi E. Partially Structure-Preserving Signatures: Lower Bounds, Constructions and More. In: 19th International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS 2021). 2021, Kamakura, Japan: Springer.
    • McCarthy A, Andriotis P, Ghadafi E, Legg P. Feature Vulnerability and Robustness Assessment against Adversarial Machine Learning Attacks. In: International Conference on Cyber Situational Awareness, Data Analytics and Assessment (CyberSA). 2021, IEEE.
    • Ghadafi E. Further Lower Bounds for Structure-Preserving Signatures in Asymmetric Bilinear Groups.Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11627. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23696-0_21. In: Progress in Cryptology – AFRICACRYPT. 2019, Springer.
    • Ghadafi E, Groth J. Towards a Classification of Non-interactive Computational Assumptions in Cyclic Groups. In: Advances in Cryptology – ASIACRYPT. 2017, Springer.
    • Ghadafi E. Subset Signatures with Controlled Context-Hiding. In: Cryptography and Coding. IMACC. 2017, Springer.
    • Ghadafi E. More Efficient Structure-Preserving Signatures - Or: Bypassing the Type-III Lower Bounds. In: Computer Security – ESORICS 2017. 2017, Springer.
    • Bootle J, Cerulli A, Ghadafi E, Groth J, Hajiabadi M, Jakobsen SK. Linear-Time Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Arithmetic Circuit Satisfiability. In: Advances in Cryptology – ASIACRYPT. 2017, Springer. In Preparation.
    • Ghadafi E. How Low Can You Go? Short Structure-Preserving Signatures for Diffie-Hellman Vectors. In: Cryptography and Coding. IMACC. 2017, Oxford, UK: Springer. In Preparation.
    • El Kaafarani A, Ghadafi E. Attribute-Based Signatures with User-Controlled Linkability Without Random Oracles. In: Cryptography and Coding. IMACC. 2017, Springer.
    • Bootle J, Cerulli A, Chaidos P, Ghadafi E, Groth J. Foundations of Fully Dynamic Group Signatures. In: Applied Cryptography and Network Security -- ACNS. 2016, UK: Springer.
    • Ghadafi E. Stronger Security Notions for Decentralized Traceable Attribute-Based Signatures and More Efficient Constructions. In: Topics in Cryptology –- CT-RSA. 2015, USA: Springer.
    • Bootle J, Cerulli A, Chaidos P, Ghadafi E, Groth J, Petit C. Short Accountable Ring Signatures Based on DDH. In: Computer Security -- ESORICS. 2015, Springer.
    • Ghadafi E. Efficient Distributed Tag-Based Encryption and Its Application to Group Signatures with Efficient Distributed Traceability Springer. In: Progress in Cryptology - LATINCRYPT. 2015, Springer.
    • El Kaafarani A, Ghadafi E, Khader D. Decentralized Traceable Attribute-Based Signatures. In: Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA. 2014, USA: Springer.
    • El Kaafarani A, Chen L, Ghadafi E, Davenport J. Attribute-Based Signatures with User-Controlled Linkability. In: Cryptology and Network Security -- CANS. 2014, Springer.
    • Ghadafi E. Formalizing Group Blind Signatures and Practical Constructions without Random Oracles. In: Information Security and Privacy -- ACISP. 2013, Springer.
    • Bernhard D, Fuchsbauer G, Ghadafi E. Efficient Signatures of Knowledge and DAA in the Standard Model. In: Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS). 2013, Springer.
    • Ghadafi E, Smart NP. Efficient Two-Move Blind Signatures in the Common Reference String Model. In: Information Security -- ISC. 2012, Springer.
    • Ghadafi E, Smart NP, Warinschi B. Groth–Sahai Proofs Revisited. In: Public Key Cryptography – PKC. 2010, Springer.
    • Ghadafi E, Smart NP, Warinschi B. Practical Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Circuit Evaluation. In: Cryptography and Coding -- IMACC. 2009, Springer.

  • Report

    • Smart NP, Bangerter E, Ghadafi E, Krenn S, Sadeghi A, Schneider AR, Tsay J-K, Warinschi B. Final report on unified theoretical framework of efficient zero-knowledge proofs of knowledge. 2009. CACE project deliverable.