Current ninjas
Victor LOMNE
Co-founder & Security Expert
Victor holds a master degree in cryptology and computer security from the university of Bordeaux, France, and a PhD degree in microelectronics from the university of Montpellier, France.
He worked during 7 years as security expert in the hardware security team of the scientific division of ANSSI (French Cybersecurity Agency) in Paris, France. During these years he created and was responsible for the team lab, worked as penetration tester on a wide range of products, and was technical support for the ANSSI National Certification Center.
He then came back to work as researcher at the LIRMM (laboratory of computer science, robotics and microelectronics of the university of Montpellier), before co-founding NinjaLab.
Victor is also an active academic researcher in the fields of cryptology and hardware security, with publications, keynotes and program committee membership in top conferences like CHES, FDTC and COSADE.
Thomas ROCHE
Co-founder & Security Expert
Thomas holds an engineer degree in applied mathematics from ENSIMAG engineering school and a PhD degree in mathematics and computer science from the university of Grenoble, France.
He has been postdoctoral researcher at the university of Paris 8 and Oberthur Technologies (now IDEMIA).
Then he became security expert in the hardware security team of the scientific division of ANSSI (French Cybersecurity Agency) during four years, working on research in cryptology, penetration testing and certification. During these years, Thomas published numerous scientific papers in the leading conferences of this research field.
In 2015, Thomas joined APPLE where he worked in parallel in two different R&D teams located in Paris: the Fairplay (DRM) team and the ApplePay Security team. Continuing his work on physical security of cryptographic implementations inside the wide range of Apple products, Thomas also worked on the design and implementation of white-box cryptography for the Fairplay technology.
In 2017, Thomas left APPLE and co-founded NinjaLab with the ambition of analyzing and improving the security of cryptographic implementations, bounding together white-box and side-channel worlds.
Malek SFAXI
Engineer & PhD Student
Malek holds an engineer degree in cybersecurity from EURECOM engineering school.
She is currently engineer at NinjaLab, and PhD student with the university of Montpellier, France. Her scientific advisors are Victor Lomné and Pr. Philippe Maurine (university professor at the LIRMM, laboratory of computer science, robotics and microelectronics of the university of Montpellier, and at Polytech Montpellier engineering school).
Malek did her end of studies internship at NinjaLab on practical side-channel attacks on elliptic curve cryptography.
Malek also did an internship at EURECOM cybersecurity department during summer 2024 about Privacy Preserving Federated Learning.
Malek is also a regular CTF player, co-founder N0PSctf competition, and part of the BrHackeuses (a women-only CTF team).
Mathieu BOUGET
Intern
Mathieu is currently an intern at NinjaLab, working on on side-channel attacks on post-quantum cryptography, especially ML-DSA.
Mathieu is a student at ENS Lyon since 2021 in computer science.
Mathieu also did internships in ENS Lyon on isogeny-based post-quantum cryptography, and in universita di Catania on secure multiparty computation.
Former ninjas
Camille MUTSCHLER
Engineer & PhD Student
Camille holds a master degree in cryptology and computer security from the university of Bordeaux, France.
She has been engineer at NinjaLab, and PhD student with the university of Montpellier, France. Her scientific advisors were Thomas Roche and Laurent Imbert (CNRS research director at the LIRMM, laboratory of computer science, robotics and microelectronics of the university of Montpellier).
She has been ATER (teaching and research fellow) at the LIRMM / university of Montpellier, and obtained her PhD degree in December 2024.
She is currently cryptography engineer at IDEMIA
Valence CRISTIANI
Security Researcher
Valence holds a master degree in applied algebra and cryptography from the university of Versailles Saint Quentin, France, and a PhD degree in information security from the university of Montpellier, France.
He joined NinjaLab as a security researcher in 2022 at the end of his PhD. His main research topics include the theoretical study of side-channel analysis and the use of machine-learning as multivariate side-channel tools.
He left NinjaLab in July 2023, in order to move to the generative AI field.
Valence is also a professional magician and music player.
Paco POILBOUT
Intern
Paco holds an engineer degree in applied mathematics and cryptology from ENSIMAG engineering school.
Paco did his end of studies internship at NinjaLab on side-channel attacks on post-quantum cryptography, especially ML-KEM.
Paco also did an internship at the LJK research laboratory of the university of Grenoble during summer 2024 about homomorphic encryption.