CSIRO Next Generation Graduate Natalie Chan is tackling one of the most urgent challenges in cybersecurity: ensuring digital provenance remains trustworthy in the age of quantum computing — with support from Senetas.
As generative AI blurs the line between what’s real and what’s fabricated, verifying authenticity has never mattered more. From deepfakes to synthetic news, digital content can now be manipulated in ways almost impossible to detect.
That’s where digital provenance comes in — the process of tracing a piece of content back to its source and proving its integrity. Global initiatives like the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) are building frameworks to make this possible.
But what happens when quantum computing arrives — a technology predicted to emerge within the next fifteen years, powerful enough to break many of today’s cryptographic foundations? That’s the question driving Natalie Chan, a Monash University Computer Science Honours student taking part in the CSIRO Next Generation Graduates Program, proudly supported by Senetas.
Securing Digital Provenance Against Quantum Threats
Quantum computing promises breakthroughs in medicine, logistics, and data science — but it also introduces an unprecedented cybersecurity challenge. Its immense computational power could one day render many current encryption methods obsolete, including the digital signatures that underpin content authenticity.
C2PA offers a strong framework for verifying provenance metadata — confirming who created something, when, and whether it’s been changed. However, traditional signature schemes face limitations when privacy or flexibility are required. In sectors like healthcare or law, for instance, users may need to redact personal data while still proving the rest of a document is authentic.
As Natalie explains, the problem is twofold: current models aren’t designed for privacy-preserving redactions, and they aren’t yet quantum-safe. Without quantum-resistant solutions, our ability to distinguish authentic digital content from manipulated media could be at risk in the decades ahead.
That challenge forms the heart of Natalie’s research — developing a future-proof way to prove digital truth.
Rethinking Digital Signatures
Natalie’s curiosity for science and technology began early, nurtured by family members who shared her fascination with how things work. Over time, that curiosity evolved into a passion for research with real-world impact: securing the very foundations of trust in the digital world.
Through the Quantum-Resistant Cryptography for Network Encryptors sub-program, Natalie works alongside her co-supervisor Dr Matthew Kim, an FPGA Engineer at Senetas. Together, they’re exploring how new approaches to digital signatures can withstand both quantum attacks and the practical requirements of industries handling sensitive information.
“Despite the limited timeframe, Natalie’s producing impressive results,” says Dr Kim. “The topic is new to both academia and industry, making this a valuable piece of research. She’s addressing the growing challenge of authenticating original versus AI-modified content.”
Stage One: Building Better Tools for Provenance
The first phase of Natalie’s project focuses on evaluating existing digital signature tools — the cryptographic “seals” that confirm authenticity — and testing new ways to make them more flexible and resilient.
Natalie’s goal is to enhance security without adding unnecessary complexity. Rather than simply increasing key sizes or parameters, she’s exploring two complementary strategies:
- One that adapts existing constructions without altering their underlying framework.
- Another that reworks key parameters for improved efficiency and alignment with prior designs.
One particularly exciting avenue is the idea of redactable signatures — imagine a signed digital document where specific sections can be removed for privacy, yet the remaining content still verifies as authentic. Natalie’s work aims to make this possible, striking a balance between usability, performance, and security.
Stage Two: Transitioning to Post-Quantum Cryptography
In the second stage, Natalie will turn attention on to post-quantum cryptography — the design of encryption methods that remain secure even against quantum computers.
Here, she’ll investigate new techniques for generating redactable, quantum-safe signatures using advanced tools and frameworks such as FN-DSA and ML-DSA — post-quantum digital signature algorithms proposed under the NIST standardization process. Integrating these into C2PA-based systems will allow for direct comparisons between today’s methods and their quantum-resistant counterparts, testing performance and robustness under real-world conditions.
Natalie’s vision is clear: by combining quantum-safe algorithms with privacy-preserving digital provenance, it may be possible to create systems that both safeguard against quantum threats and enable secure, flexible control over sensitive content.
Looking Ahead
Natalie Chan’s work embodies how the next generation of cryptographers is preparing for a world transformed by both AI and quantum computing.
Natalie’s research represents a small but significant step toward ensuring that the truth in digital media — the authenticity of what we see, read, and share — remains verifiable and trustworthy long into the future.
Stay tuned for updates on Natalie’s progress through the CSIRO Next Generation Graduates Program and her continued collaboration with Senetas to help build a quantum-safe digital future.
Watch the video: Explore how the Next Generation Graduates Program connects bright minds and industry to create tomorrow’s digital solutions.
About Senetas and the CSIRO Next Generation Graduates Program
Managed by CSIRO’s Data61, the Next Generation Graduates Program embodies a multidisciplinary ethos — bringing together students, researchers, and industry leaders to advance innovation in AI, quantum technology, and cryptographic research.
Its mission — fostering entrepreneurial thinking and driving industry-led projects — aligns perfectly with Senetas’ commitment to innovation and real-world impact.
By investing in the next generation of talent and pushing the boundaries of cryptographic research, Senetas and its partners are helping to address today’s challenges and lay the foundations for a secure and resilient digital future.
