"IBM: Quantum Computing Poses an 'Existential Threat' to Data Encryption"

The IBM Institute for Business Value released a new report titled "Security in the Quantum Era" that examines quantum risks and the need for enterprise adoption of quantum-safe capabilities to protect the integrity of critical applications and infrastructure as the risk of decryption rises. The report asserts that quantum computing poses an existential threat to classical computer encryption protocols, noting that cybercriminals may already be exfiltrating encrypted data with the intent of decrypting it once quantum computers become more advanced as part of Harvest Now, Decrypt Later (HNDL) attacks. According to the report, using Shor's algorithm and a quantum computer, cryptographic protocols can theoretically be solved within a few hours. In the future, when quantum computers are at their full potential, protocols such as RSA will be rendered unsuitable as a cryptographic scheme. Although this process has not yet occurred, an increasing number of companies are taking the threat posed by this decryption seriously. President Biden signed the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act in December 2022, urging government agencies to implement technology resistant to post-quantum decryption. Similarly, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finished its search for quantum-resistant algorithms, which had been in progress since 2016. NIST selected four algorithms as finalists and chose CRYSTALS-Kyber, a public-key encryption algorithm, and CRYSTALS-Dilithium, a digital signature algorithm, as its top two chosen standards. This article continues to discuss key points from IBM's report on quantum security regarding the problem with traditional encryption and quantum computing, as well as IBM's lattice-based approach to quantum-safe encryption.

VB reports "IBM: Quantum Computing Poses an 'Existential Threat' to Data Encryption"