ZK/SEC Quarterly

Lattice SNARKs · Part 3

Soundness Failures in LaBRADOR Implementations from NTT -Friendly Rings

Post-quantum cryptography is making its way into production libraries, and correct implementation is far from trivial. We reviewed several LaBRADOR implementations on GitHub and found three of them broken, with soundness collapsing as far as a single bit, because of parameter choices that look perfectly reasonable in many lattice-based protocols; a power-of-2 modulus, a composite modulus, or NTT-friendly rings for efficient ring multiplication. The post goes through how each of those choices undermines the protocol's soundness argument, and why NTT-friendliness, of all things, turns out to be the wrong instinct if not handled carefully.

Georgios Raikos April 30, 2026 15 min Read →

zk · formal-verification

The Final Form of Software Development

What if the final form of software development was just watching code and proof popping up while you sip a drink? Letting AI agents write assembly directly alongside Lean proofs sidesteps the whole compiler-trust problem. With a peek at real EVM 256-bit addition code and its specification, you'll see why the assembly + Lean paradigm is final in both the historical and category theoretic sense.

Yoichi Hirai April 29, 2026 9 min

educative · sagemath

Cryptography challenges @KalmarCTF 2026

Minsun shares a high-level overview of the hard cryptography challenges he authored for KalmarCTF 2026, focusing on the broader ideas behind their design and solutions. The post reflects on how subtle randomness failures and algebraic structure can lead to deep vulnerabilities.

Minsun Kim April 28, 2026 13 min

Sum-Check as an Algebraic Tensor Reduction · Part 1

Sum-Check as an Algebraic Tensor Reduction: Part I

This post introduces algebraic tensor reductions as a unifying framework for understanding recursive proof protocols, using sum-check as the main motivating example. It walks through one recursive step of sum-check, showing how the prover sends a univariate summary, the verifier checks sum consistency, and the original claim is reduced to a smaller claim with one fewer variable. A small bivariate example illustrates how this “peel off one variable, check, then fold with randomness” pattern works concretely. The post sets up the rest of the series, which will introduce the tensor language needed to recover classical sum-check as an algebraic tensor reduction.

Marco Besier April 27, 2026 8 min

Proof is in the Pudding · Part 9

Archetype x zkSecurity - Proof is in the Pudding: ZK on Bitcoin

In Session 09 of "Proof is in the Pudding," we explore the intersection of zero-knowledge proofs and Bitcoin. We break down Bitcoin's UTXO model and Script limitations, then dive deep into approaches for verifying ZK proofs on Bitcoin, from MPC-based techniques to BitVM's optimistic verification with fraud proofs. We cover timelocks, the statelessness problem and Lamport signatures for state, Taproot, simulated covenants, BitVM 3 with hashlocks and garbled circuits, cut-and-choose security, and witness encryption (BABE).

ZK/SEC April 02, 2026

educative · zk

KZG vs IPA vs FRI: Picking the Right Polynomial Commitment Scheme

A practical guide to the trade-offs between KZG, IPA/Halo, and FRI, the three major polynomial commitment scheme families powering modern zero-knowledge proof systems. We compare proof sizes, verification costs, trust assumptions, benchmarks, and on-chain gas costs.

ZK/SEC, University of Padua March 23, 2026

security · zk

The First ZK Exploits Happened, and They Weren't What We Expected

The first two known exploits against live ZK circuits happened in the past week. Both stem from the same root cause. They were not subtle underconstrained bugs, but rather Groth16 verifiers (generated by snarkjs) with an incorrect setup (just missing the last step). One was exploited by white-hat hackers for ~$1.5M, the other was drained for 5 ETH.

Stefanos Chaliasos, Hao Pham February 27, 2026

educative · security

When LLM Review Cryptography Papers

Google Research used Gemini to find a bug in a cryptography paper on SNARGs from LWE. We summarize how those events unfolded, look at their iterative self-correction prompting strategy and discuss the growing role of LLMs in academic research.

Nicolas Mohnblatt February 10, 2026

zkao · Part 1

zkao: Security That Compounds

Today we're launching zkao, a product by zkSecurity that makes AI security research work the way fuzzing works: not as a one-shot event, but as something you run continuously until coverage compounds.

ZK/SEC February 07, 2026

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