Duc (Cothan) Nguyen received his Ph.D degree from George Mason University, advised by Prof. Kris Gaj. He conducted his research at Cryptographic Engineer Research Group (CERG GMU), his research interests include designing Post-Quantum Cryptography hardware architecture, and SIMD implementation of PQC candidates. Before his Ph.D., he participated in many CTF competitions and won several national and international prizes, his tasks were to implement relevant cryptographic attack papers during competitions.
Also, he was the founder of Efiens CTF team, Efiens was the top student CTF team in Vietnam at somepoint in the past.
Skills
- Experienced: Cryptography, Network Security, Reverse Engineering, Debugging
- Hardware: $|$ FPGA: Vivado, Vitis, Vitis-HLS $|$ GPU: OpenACC
- Software: OpenSSL, BoringSSL, Bazel, IDA, Ghidra, Z3Prover
- Low-level Programming: x86_64 + AVX2 assembly, ARM + NEON assembly
- High-level Programming: Rust, C, Python, Go, Bash
Research interests
- Post-Quantum Cryptography
- SIMD Cryptographic Implementation
- FPGA High Level Synthesis (Xilinx Vitis)
Education
- 2017 $\to$ 2023, Doctor of Philosophy with Outstanding Academic Achievement, Cryptography Engineering, advised by Prof. Kris Gaj.
- 2010 $\to$ 2015, BSc in Computer Engineering, Bach Khoa University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Awards & Honors
| Year | Competition | Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition Final Round | $3^{\text{rd}}$ |
| 2021 | National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition Wild Card Round | $1^{\text{st}}$ |
| 2021 | Mid Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition Regional Final Round | $2^{\text{nd}}$ |
| $1^{\text{st}}$ place in SLA service ranking | ||
| 2021 | Mid Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition Regional Qualify Round | $1^{\text{st}}$ |
| 2014$\to$2020 | Participating over 200 Capture The Flag competitions | |
| 2020 | Mid Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition Regional Final Round | $5^{\text{th}}$ |
| 2019 | International Olympiad in Cryptography | $3^{\text{rd}}$ |
| 2018 | International Olympiad in Cryptography | Diploma |
| 2017 | International Olympiad in Cryptography | $3^{\text{rd}}$ |
| 2016 | International Olympiad in Cryptography | $3^{\text{rd}}$ |
| 2016 | CTFtime.org worldwide ranking: 1st in the world | $1^{\text{st}}$/DCUA |
| 2016 | Hack in the Box Singapore by Facebook, Singapore | $4^{\text{th}}$/DCUA |
| 2015 | Hack In The Box Amsterdam by Beyond Security, Netherland | $2^{\text{nd}}$/DCUA |
| 2014 | National Vietnamese Cyber Security Student Competition by VNISA Vietnam | $2^{\text{nd}}$/BKIT-Respawn |