Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London are part of a team whose recent analysis of the protocol used in the Telegram messaging platform has won a distinguished paper award at IEEE S&P 2022.

Cryptography is the science protecting information from eavesdropping or tampering. We use it every day when we browse the web, make a bank transaction or chat on WhatsApp or Telegram. Cryptographers secure computer and information technology systems by creating and studying, for example, algorithms for encryption or for digital signatures.

Telegram is a widely used messaging app, with over half a billion monthly active users. As a result of their work, the researchers found several cryptographic weaknesses in the protocol that ranged from technically trivial and easy to exploit, to more advanced.

The team included Chair of Information Security and Director of the Cryptography Group Professor Martin Albrecht, and PhD researcher Lenka Mareková, from the Information Security Group (ISG) at Royal Holloway, along with Professor Kenneth G. Paterson and Dr Igors Stepanovs, from the Applied Cryptography Group at ETH Zurich.

Talking about the honour, Professor Martin Albrecht said: “It is great to see this work recognised both within academia and beyond. We hope that this recognition will inspire other researchers to study the security of protocols like Telegram, which are relied upon by protesters worldwide.”

For all results from the analysis, click here.