She is known as the “Queen of Cryptography” in China and is a mathematical genius that gives headaches to American intelligence agencies. She led her team to successively crack globally recognized secure encryption algorithms such as MD5 and SHA-1, shocking the international cryptography community and forcing the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to urgently adjust encryption standards.Not only is she an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but she is also an important guardian of national cybersecurity. She is Wang Xiaoyun— a heroine who defends national security with mathematics.
Wang Xiaoyun was born in 1966 in an ordinary rural family in Zhucheng, Shandong.
Although her family was not wealthy, she showed an astonishing talent for mathematics from a young age, particularly with numbers and logical reasoning.
During her middle school years, her mathematics grades were always among the top, and she achieved excellent results in national mathematics competitions.
In 1983, she was admitted to the Mathematics Department of Shandong University with outstanding grades.
During her university years, she was not satisfied with textbook knowledge but extensively read works related to number theory and cryptography, gradually developing a strong interest in the topic of “how to protect information”.
In 1990, she obtained her Ph.D. from Shandong University and stayed on to teach, officially starting her journey in cryptography research.
In the 1990s, the global internet developed rapidly, and information security became a high ground for competition among countries.
At that time, the MD5 and SHA-1 hash algorithms, dominated by the United States, were widely used in finance, military, and network communications, regarded as an “unbreakable” security barrier.
However, Wang Xiaoyun keenly discovered that these algorithms might have theoretical vulnerabilities.
Starting in 1994, she led her team to conduct in-depth research, going through countless failures and adjustments. Since cryptanalysis requires strong mathematical skills and computational power, she often worked late into the night, sometimes without a day off for several months.
Hard work pays off; in 2004, she announced the successful cracking of the MD5 algorithm at the top international cryptography conference CRYPTO, and the following year, she broke SHA-1.
This breakthrough directly shook the global information security system, forcing the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to urgently call for the global discontinuation of MD5 and accelerate the development of a more secure SHA-3 standard.
Wang Xiaoyun’s achievements lie not only in breaking foreign codes but also in building China’s own security system. She understands that relying on foreign encryption standards is equivalent to handing over national information security.
Therefore, she led her team to focus on the research and development of domestic encryption algorithms, overseeing the design of the SM3 hash algorithm, which has now become the cornerstone of security in China’s finance, government, military, and other core fields.
In 2017, she was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and became a professor at Tsinghua University’s Institute for Advanced Study.
She has repeatedly emphasized: “Cryptography is not only a mathematical problem but also a national security issue.”
Under her promotion, China’s cryptography research has entered the world’s forefront, no longer being constrained by others.
Despite her numerous honors, Wang Xiaoyun remains humble and low-key as a scholar. She rarely accepts media interviews and is reluctant to be labeled a “genius”.
She says: “I just did what I was supposed to do; cryptography requires patience and persistence, not so-called ‘talent’.”
Today, she continues to fight on the front lines of research, leading her team to explore cutting-edge fields such as quantum cryptography and blockchain security, safeguarding China’s cybersecurity.
Her story tells us:A true scientist must not only have the wisdom to solve problems but also the responsibility to protect their country.
From a mathematical girl in a rural area of Shandong to a top scholar shaking the world cryptography system, Wang Xiaoyun has written a legendary chapter of Chinese scientists with her talent and perseverance.Her achievements not only impress international peers but also give China a voice in the field of information security. As she said: “Our goal is not to crack others’ codes but to make China’s codes unbreakable.“