Master’s
Thesis & Project

You want to do your master’s thesis or project in information security with us? Great!

Our projects and theses reflect our four core research areas: System Security, Formal Methods, Cryptology & Privacy, and Secure Applications. You’ll work with our research teams to solve challenges arising in our security research – maybe your results will even lead to a new scientific publication!

If you like one (or many!) of the open topics below, contact the listed supervisors and have a chat to find out more. If you’re unsure, but you enjoyed some of our lectures or you’re generally interested in information security, feel free to contact any of us and discuss possible directions – we’re happy to help find a suitable topic for you (or maybe find somebody else who can).

Some of our topics are “scalable” for both master projects (focus on implementation and experiments, short final report) and master’s theses (focus on research questions, typically includes implementation work and experiments, discussed in comprehensive written thesis), some are only suitable for either projects or theses, as indicated for each topic.

Open Topics

System Security


Floating-Point meets Fixed-Point: Exploring non-integer Multiplication Methods for Homomorphic Encryption	Florian Krieger
Hardware Implementation of Raccoon Post-Quantum Signature Scheme	Florian Krieger
Design space exploration of CRYSTALS-Dilithium's polynomial multiplication in hardware	Aikata
High-performance architecture for NIST PQC selected schemes CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium	Aikata
Accelerating integer arithmetic for isogenies	Anisha Mukherjee and David Jacquemin
Design space exploration of CRYSTALS-Kyber's polynomial multiplication in hardware	Aikata
Analyzing and Integrating Novel Side-channel Countermeasures into Lattice-based Crypto	Rishub Nagpal
Side-channel evaluation of NIST PQC selected schemes CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium	Aikata
Hardware Implementation of Raccoon Post-Quantum Signature Scheme	Aikata
Side-channel Analysis of Exotic PQC Signature Schemes	Rishub Nagpal

Formal Methods


TEMPEST - Shielding Against the Storm	Stefan Pranger

Cryptology & Privacy


Upgrade Federated Learning with MPC-based Secure Aggregation	Karl W. Koch
Exploring Gröbner Basis Attack Software: Application to AO hash functions	Katharina Koschatko
Exploring wider usage scenarios of differential privacy	Fredrik Meisingseth
Cryptanalysis of Symmetric Primitives	Maria Eichlseder
Zero Knowledge Proofs and their Applications	Shibam Mukherjee

Secure Applications


Topics for Master Students	Secure Applications area
Analyzing the local Citizen Card Environment	Jakob Heher and Stefan More
Reproducible Builds for the eIDAS 2.0 Wallet	A-SIT Plus GmbH
Design and Implementation of Verifiable Data Structures for Transparency Systems	Edona Fasllija
Protecting Against Split View Attacks in Transparency Systems	Edona Fasllija
Transparency Systems with Succinct Proofs of Correctness	Edona Fasllija

How & When to Register

Master’s Thesis and Master Project can generally be started any time. To start your thesis, you need to find a supervisor whose topics you find interesting and contact them directly. Email them and ask for a meeting to discuss potential topics (usually based on the above list or related topics). If you enjoyed a lecturer’s courses, but find no topics of them listed above, feel free to contact them (or other people in their research groups) and ask if they’re offering any unlisted topics – or maybe you have your own proposal for a topic.

After starting your thesis (and only then), it is useful to also register in TUGRAZonline for the group corresponding to your supervisor’s team leader – if unsure, just ask. If there are any dummy dates in the course’s calendar (e.g., early morning at “Baustelle”), you can generally ignore those.

705.109 Seminar/Project Information Security: Master project for ICE, CS, SEM 10 ECTS
Master’s theses have no corresponding course; you register directly with the dean’s office (see below) 30 ECTS

Starting your Thesis

Kick-off meeting: after you’ve agreed on a topic with your supervisor, take the time for a dedicated kick-off meeting with your supervisor and maybe the research team leader. Plan your first steps and goals, find out where to start reading, and agree on dates for your next meeting(s).
Infrastructure: Your supervisor will provide you with an IAIK StudentNet account and any tools that you might need, such as
- Git repository (advisor instructions, login with StudentNet account)
- Mattermost (login with StudentNet account) or Discord (login with your own account) for communication
- Grammarly account and latexgrammarly script, if necessary
- Necessary software accounts, hardware devices, cluster access (advisor infosheet), …
Register your thesis: Complete the Application Form for Master’s Thesis and submit it to the Dean’s Office (deansoffice.csbme@tugraz.at).
Concept presentation: after a month or so, you’ll present your plans for the thesis and your first steps to the research team. You’ll receive feedback and discuss the details and timeline for the rest of your project.

Finishing your Thesis

The Dean’s Office provides instructions and a checklist for handing in your thesis:

Exam Date: Select your target Exam Date and check the submission deadline (6 weeks before your exam!). The time will be set by the Dean’s Office a few weeks before the exam.
Course list: You can contact the deans’s office to do a preliminary check of your course selection.
Examiners: Select your three committee members. Contact them by email to ask for their availability (include your thesis topic, supervisor, and planned date).
- Your 1st examiner is usually your supervisor or their team leader (who graded the thesis).
- For the 2nd and 3rd examiners, choose professors with a suitable background. At least one of them needs a habilitation (for SEM: from the CSBME faculty). Choose at least one from a different institute than your supervisor’s. One of these two will be the head of the committee.
Plagiarism check: Your supervisor conducts a plagiarism check of your thesis (via IAIK office) and signs the Plagiarism check confirmation.
Application: Fill in the Online Application Form for the Master’s Examination
- You’ll need to attach the confirmation emails of the examiners, the plagiarism check, and a statistical questionnaire confirmation.
Thesis in TUGRAZonline: Complete your thesis registration in TUGRAZonline by filling in the thesis details in “My theses”.
Certificate: Your supervisor confirms the thesis in TUGRAZonline and generates the Certificate (Zeugnis).
Thesis copies: Send your thesis PDF to all your examiners at least 4 weeks before the exam. Your supervisor may ask you for a printed, hardbound copy of your thesis for the institute (CopyShop or a book printing office – takes a day or two). The dean’s office no longer requires any hard copies.

Your Master’s Examination

A few days before your exam, give a rehearsal talk for your supervisor’s group. This talk is usually announced on the group’s student seminar mailinglist.
The exams take place in person on-campus. Only in exceptional cases, exams may be conducted virtually, hosted by the dean’s office or the head of committee on WebEx.
The Master’s Examination starts with your presentation (max. 25 minutes), followed by questions on your thesis and its context from the examiners. The total exam duration is 60 minutes.
Exam process

LaTeX Templates

You can use our LaTeX template for master’s theses or the TU Graz thesis titlepage to prepare your master’s thesis.

For the report of your master’s project, you can optionally use our LaTeX template (master’s project report).

For your presentation, you can use any presentation software and template, including the official TU Graz presentation template for LaTeX or Powerpoint.