The Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography (COSIC) research group was founded in 1979 and currently has 8 professors, 8 members of support staff, 8 research experts/managers and over 80 researchers.

The group is headed by Bart Preneel.

COSIC is part of the Department of Electrical Engineering at KU Leuven. During the last 15 years, COSIC obtained more than 1200 international reviewed publications in journals and conferences, 13 edited books, 10 patents and has graduated over 60 PhD students.