After nearly a three-year process, signcryption has been formally recognized as an international standard by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO).

University of North Carolina Charlotte Professor Yuliang Zheng, who works in the school's College of Computing and Informatics and invented the technology, says, "The adoption of signcryption as an international standard is significant in several ways. It will now be the standard worldwide for protecting confidentiality and authenticity during transmissions of digital information."

Signcryption is a technology that Zheng claims protects confidentiality and authenticity, seamlessly and simultaneously. For example, when a person logs in to an online bank account, signcryption prevents the username and password from being seen by unauthorized individuals. At the same time, it confirms the person's identity for the bank. Zheng says the application also will enhance the security and privacy of cloud computing.

Zheng is recognized internationally as an authority in cryptography and network security.

"This will also allow smaller devices, such as smartphones and PDAs, 3G and 4G mobile communications, as well as emerging technologies, such as radio frequency identifiers (RFID) and wireless sensor networks, to perform high-level security functions," he says. "And, by performing these two functions simultaneously, we can save resources, be it an individual's time or be it energy, as it will take less time to perform the task."