Although quantum computing is still in its early phases, the technology will affect more sectors than most people know. Even the most powerful supercomputers in the world can’t compete with quantum computers when it comes to processing data and performing complex calculations.
Due to their complexity, they may solve issues that were formerly thought to be insurmountable and do so almost instantly. When Google created its first quantum computer in 2019, it could complete calculations that would have taken the world’s fastest supercomputer at the time 10,000 years to complete in just a little over three minutes.
Quantum computers can search enormous amounts of data to find patterns and links, thanks to their incredible computing capacity. This has a wide range of commercial applications, from optimizing the global logistics supply chain to assisting medical researchers in bringing life-saving medications to market more quickly to improving predictive models for predicting complicated issues like climate change.
Quantum computing technology will bring about many changes, but not all will be good. Additionally, it threatens cybersecurity, notably the modern encryption techniques everyone uses to safeguard critical data. According to experts, quantum computing could speed up the resolution of various issues across several industries within ten years.
How Does Quantum Computing impact Will Cybersecurity?
Quantum computing will fundamentally alter how cybersecurity assaults are carried out and how we defend against them as it gains popularity. When it comes to many tasks, quantum computing surpasses traditional computing since it is based on the laws of quantum physics. Globally, research institutes and commercial sector businesses are making a significant effort to create hardware suited for quantum computing.
The following are a few ways that show the potential impact of quantum computing on cybersecurity:
Cryptography Realm
Cryptography will be one of the areas where quantum computing will have the most significant immediate effects on cybersecurity. Public key encryption is currently used to encrypt practically all critical communications and data transferred over the Internet or to the cloud. It is now, by far, the most widely utilized type of internet encryption.
Every web browser in use today has the underlying public critical infrastructure (PKI) built in to protect traffic over the open Internet. Most businesses also employ public key encryption to protect their internal data, communications, and user access to linked devices.
The Scraping Threat
Regardless of the availability of commercialized quantum computers, the risk of data collection by dishonest parties is another reason to quantum-proof data today.
As soon as they can get their hands on a QC to decode it, they will begin collecting data and storing it.
At that point, the data has already been altered. Data must be protected using quantum-proof technology to remain secure, especially information that must be kept eternally.
The Quantum Threat
Quantum computers can solve problems that conventional computers couldn’t solve. Decoding the methods that support encryption keys, which safeguard our data and the structure of the Internet, is a component of this.
Modern encryption relies heavily on mathematical calculations that would be impossible to crack using current technology. For example, consider adding two huge integers to compress this. The product can be calculated easily, but splitting a large integer into two primes is much more challenging.
On the other hand, a quantum computer can immediately fold the numbers and crack the code. By using Peter Shor’s quantum computing algorithm, big numbers can be factored more quickly. Since then, scientists have developed QCs that can handle more significant numbers.
Public Key Encryption
Quantum computers can quickly crack (or decrypt) public key encryption without requiring access to the decryption key due to their higher computational capacity. In other words, all communications and data encrypted with PKI might be accessed by an adversary nation-state or cyber-criminal organization having access to quantum computing capabilities.
It’s simple to see the harm if a malicious entity like that exploits this skill to gain access to private data from businesses or government agencies engaged in critical infrastructure, national security, or other vital industries.Quantum Computing
Conclusion
Researchers are putting much effort into figuring out the many unresolved issues surrounding quantum computing. Quantum computing will put cybersecurity and current encryptions at risk, specifically regarding its impact on cybersecurity. We must immediately start changing how we protect our data from addressing this threat.
The same defense-in-depth approach that we use to address traditional security threats must be used to manage the quantum threat, which includes numerous layers of quantum-safe security.
Companies who care about security understand the value of cryptographic flexibility and are searching for solutions like those offered by Quantum Xchange to make their cryptography both quantum-safe and prepared for emerging threats.
