(ZHOU HENGYI)

Wang Xiaoyun has become the youngest and only female winner of China's top accolade for applied mathematics, the Su Buqing Prize. She was awarded it on July 8.

Wang, 44, has decoded two international cipher systems, MD5 and SHA-1, widely used for digital signatures in e-commerce.

Wang first declared her research results on MD5 at an international cryptography conference in the United States in August 2004, and in 2005, she made a breakthrough in spotting loopholes in SHA-1.

MD5 was developed by American mathematician Ron Rivest and SHA-1 was developed for the U.S. Government and later became an industry standard.

Because of Wang's work, a new cipher system is being developed and is expected to be unveiled in 2012.