Q-FENCE at IEEE ISVLSI 2026: Securing the Next Generation of AI and IoT Systems

Press Release (QFENCE)

Alia Umrani and Krishnendu Guha – (UCC)

The Q-FENCE project supported research and dissemination activities at the IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI 2026), held from 7–10 July 2026 in Kolkata, India, including a research article presentation and the organisation of a special session on secure and sustainable AI for cloud-to-thing continuum. Dr. Krishnendu Guha also served as the Publicity Chair in this edition of the prestigious conference.

Research Presentation

The research article authored by Alia Umrani and Krishnendu Guha (University College Cork, Ireland), in entitled “Privacy Enhanced Certificateless Hybrid Signcryption for Smart Internet of Things (IoT) Systems.” The work presents a privacy enhanced cryptographic framework for secure IoT communication by integrating a Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) based registration mechanism into a certificateless hybrid signcryption scheme. The proposed approach enables IoT devices to authenticate securely without revealing their real identities while preserving confidentiality, authentication, anonymity, and other essential security properties.

The research aligns closely with the objectives of the QFENCE project by advancing privacy preserving and lightweight cryptographic techniques for secure and trustworthy IoT and embedded systems. Such solutions are particularly important for security critical applications, including smart healthcare, where protecting sensitive data and user privacy is essential.

Special Session and Panel Discussion

Alongside the research presentation, University College Cork (UCC) hosted the special session “Secure and Sustainable AI for Cloud to Thing Continuum,” which focused on advances in secure AI, IoT, and cloud-to-edge systems. Dr Krishnendu Guha served as the session chair. This special session brought together researchers working across secure AI, cloud-to-edge computing, IoT security, and digital healthcare. It provided an excellent forum for discussing emerging security and privacy challenges, sharing recent advances, and identifying future research directions for secure, trustworthy, and sustainable distributed systems.

Dr Guha also participated as a panellist as an expert of cybersecurity for a panel discussion that focussed on “Secure Healthcare Across the Borders in the era of AI”, which explored current challenges and future research directions for developing secure, privacy-preserving, and trustworthy healthcare technologies across different continents.