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Harvest Today, Decrypt Tomorrow
Are quantum computers a clear and present danger even before they’ve actually been built?
Author’s Note. This post is short. The topic is incredibly important and nuanced and worthy of a much longer article. At this point though I’m keeping this short and snappy to ensure maximum attention.
What we know
- Quantum computers have the capability to “crack” much of today’s encryption as the way they compute makes easy work of the factorization of large numbers challenge that most of our data storage and communication technology uses as the basis of encryption
- Quantum computers able to do this are not currently available
- The development of quantum computing is at a point where it is clearly a “when” not an “if” that such machines will be available
- The “when” is getting ever closer and many people would not bet against availability within the decade
- The proven usage model of Quantum Computing as a Service (QCaaS) via the Cloud means no-one — including those with nefarious intent —needs to own a quantum computer in order to make use of its capabilities
So what?
One might think that with a decade’s warning there’s plenty of time to act. Well, a couple of questions?
- Are all the right people starting to act to make the most of that decade of lead time?
- If everyone were aware, how long does it actually take to replace encryption protocols built into hugely complex IT and communications systems?
Even if the answer to these is ‘not currently’ then one might think with a bit of a push momentum could increase.
That however is thinking only about the future risk. Not the present risk.
The value of our data
Most of the petabytes of data we produce everyday is of little value to anyone beyond the creator and his/her intended audience. However, as we well know there is data that can have value to third parties when stolen.
This takes multiple forms: fraud linked to theft of social security or credit card details of…
