Mario Marhuenda Beltrán
PhD students in cryptography at Radboud Universtity, Nijmegen,
The Netherlands.
Bio
I am currently a PhD student at Radboud University Nijmegen, in the Digital Security Group in iCIS, under the supervision of Bart Mennink (advisor) and Joan Daemen (promotor). Before that, I did my Master Thesis at PQShield in Paris under the supervision of Rafaël del Pino and Thomas Prest.
My research focuses on provable symmetric cryptography, in particular permutation-based, accordion modes and leakage resistance. Nevertheless, I am interested in all areas of cryptography.
Previously, I was:
- a research officer at Nanyang Technical University’s School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
- a research intern at PQShield
Research
Pre-Prints
- MacaKey: Full-State Keyed Sponge Meets the Summation-Truncation Hybrid
Charlotte Lefevre, Mario Marhuenda Beltrán
eprint- The Motte-and-Bailey Framework for Leakage-Resilient Accordion Modes: Featuring Qaitbay and Alicante
Mario Marhuenda Beltrán, Mustafa Khairallah
eprint- pSquare-hash: A Family of Tweakable Hash Functions for Physically Secure PQ Signatures
Lorenzo Grassi, Mario Marhuenda Beltrán, Thorben Moos, Fabian Schmid, Matthias Johann, Steiner, Hailun Yan
eprint
Publications
- Nonce Misuse Resilience of GCM with Rijndael-256-256
Mario Marhuenda Beltrán, Bart Mennink
20IMAC&C 2026
paper- On the Plaintext Awareness of AEAD Schemes [Best paper award!🎉🎉]
Mario Marhuenda Beltrán, Mustafa Khairallah
IACR Trans. Symmetric Cryptol. 2026(3)
paper- To Pad or Not to Pad? Padding-Free Arithmetization-Oriented Sponges Charlotte Lefevre, Mario Marhuenda Beltrán, Bart Mennink
IACR Trans. Symmetric Cryptol. 2025(1)
paper- Generic Security of the SAFE API and Its Applications Dmitry Khovratovich, Mario Marhuenda Beltrán, Bart Mennink
ASIACRYPT (8) 2023
paper
Other Conference Publications
- The Sponge Mesozoic: The Explosion in Sponge-Based Constructions
Mario Marhuenda Beltrán
XIX REUNIÓN ESPAÑOLA SOBRE CRIPTOLOGÍA Y SEGURIDAD DE LA INFORMACION see here
paper- Tweak Meets Hashing: Improving Padding-Free Sponges
Mario Marhuenda Beltrán
XIX REUNIÓN ESPAÑOLA SOBRE CRIPTOLOGÍA Y SEGURIDAD DE LA INFORMACION see here
paper
Activities
Talks and Presentations
- Crypto Working Group (x2)
- Asiacrypt 2023
- Lunch Talk iCis
- End of Escada
- FSE 2025
Teaching
Editorial Service
External reviewer for:
- ASIACRYPT 2024-26
- EUROCRYPT 2024-27
- CRYPTO 2025-26
- CIC
- SAC 2023
Outlier reviewer 🎉🎉 for Eurocrypt 2026.
Other Service
- Lunch talk host for the Radboud Digital Security group Lunch Talk during 2026.
- Helped organize Rijndael IEEE Milestone Event.
- General Board Member for the student chess association SSVN Tussen de Torens.
Contact
- mail: mario@beltran🎾nl or mmarhuenda@cs🎾ru🎾nl
- PGP key, EA9B AC8C AE4B 39A4 BF78 DABE C382 7A6D 5D9B CE88
- office: 03.20
- address: Radboud University, Mercator I
Toernooiveld 200-222, 6525 EC Nijmegen, Nederland
6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands- PGP key: EA9B AC8C AE4B 39A4 BF78 DABE C382 7A6D 5D9B CE88