Nicolas Courtois

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Nicolas Courtois is a cryptographer, notable for creating (along with Josef Pieprzyk) the XSL attack. He works on cryptosystems and cryptographic attacks based on multivariate polynomial equations over finite fields. Courtois graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure and later from University of Paris VI: Pierre et Marie Curie, where he got his doctoral degree in cryptography.

The XSL attack is a method of cryptanalysis for block ciphers, which is claimed to have the potential for breaking the widely used Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cipher — also known as Rijndael. If true, this would have serious and wide ranging implications.