Data breaches have remained relentless and the data sets leaked have steadily grown in size. The core reason is that attackers break into servers where the confidential data is available. The notion of secure computation promises to keep data encrypted and protected on servers at all times, even during data processing, so that it is not available to attackers who broke in. In this talk, I will survey my group’s research in making secure computation practical along two research thrusts: secure multi-party computation and hardware enclave execution. I will discuss the tradeoffs between these two approaches as well as describe a hybrid approach that promises to inherit some of the benefits of both. I will then discuss our open source platform, MC2 (Multi-party Confidential Computation), as well as its industrial adoption.
Raluca Ada Popa is the Robert E. and Beverly A. Brooks Associate Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley, working in computer security, systems, and applied cryptography. She is a Co-founder and Co-director of the RISELab and SkyLab at UC Berkeley, as well as a Co-founder and President of Opaque Systems, and a Co-founder of PreVeil, two cybersecurity startups. Raluca has received her PhD in computer science as well as her Master's and two BS degrees, in computer science and in mathematics, from MIT. She is the recipient of the 2021 ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, a Sloan Foundation Fellowship award, Jay Lepreau Best Paper Award at OSDI, Jim and Donna Gray Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, NSF Career, Technology Review 35 Innovators under 35, Microsoft Faculty Fellowship, and a George M. Sprowls Award for best MIT CS doctoral thesis.
