"Scientific Advance Leads to a New Tool in the Fight Against Hackers"
Quantum mathematicians at the University of Copenhagen have made an advancement towards a new form of security identification that could help protect data from hackers and cybercriminals. They were able to solve a mathematical riddle, which enables the use of a person's geographical location as a personal ID. This ID is said to be secure against cyberattacks, including the most advanced ones. The researchers used the laws of quantum physics to develop a new security protocol that uses a person's geographical location to ensure they are communicating with the correct person. It is called position-based quantum encryption and can be used to guarantee that a person is communicating with an actual bank representative when the bank calls and asks a customer to make changes to their account. The researchers' approach to securing a person's location involves combining the information in a single quantum bit (qubit) and classical bits. Both types of bits are required to send a message that cybercriminals cannot read, hack, or manipulate. Both types are also needed to confirm if a person is at a bank's office or in some faraway country. The qubit serves as a lock on the message because of the role of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics that causes quantum information to be disrupted and unable to be decoded when trying to measure it. The researchers say their new method is useful because it only needs one quantum bit for position verification. Unlike other quantum technologies, this new advancement can be applied today as suitable quantum sources that can send a qubit of light already exist. This article continues to discuss the single-qubit position verification protocol that is secure against multi-qubit attacks and why this method could soon be a reality.