Nations and startups around the world are investing hundreds of billion of dollars in quantum computing, says quantum security startup CEO James Nguyen
And while there are plenty of positives in quantum computing technology — new medical treatments are just one — the problem is that for a high-functioning quantum computer, all the cryptographic security we currently have could be as flimsy as using “password123” for your bank account.
That means that $100 trillion could be at risk by 2025.
“The World Economic Forum already said that by 2025 … the digital economy is going to be worth a hundred trillion dollars,” Ngyuyen told me recently on the TechFirst podcast.
“And … everything that we operate today that’s important to us, such as our memories, our financial assets, our legacy, or even our military weapons … anything that we deal with in sets of information … is controlled over the internet.”
Quantum pioneer IBM says that quantum computing will create new exposure risk since quantum computers can quickly solve the complex math problems that form the foundation of today’s security.
Those problems secure our bank accounts and nuclear weapons, and while classical supercomputers can take thousands of years to solve them, IBM says a large-scale quantum computer could theoretically solve them in hours or days.
Other computing giants like Microsoft are already hard at work on post-quantum cryptography. And Google has said that quantum computing could “end encryption” within five years.
Ngyuyen says the threat is already here, especially given that Russia and China are the two countries investing the most in quantum computing investment, and the regardless of the exact timeline, every organization needs to be “quantum ready.”
He also says that his Canadian startup, Quantropi, has the answer.
“We’ve developed the world’s first cloud-based platform for digital quantum key distribution over the internet,” Ngyuyen says. “We’ve been able to prove — with a partnership with McGill — that we’re a hundred thousand times faster than existing quantum key distribution systems.”
According to Ngyuyen, Quantropi’s solution is something like an abstraction layer for the security that banks and digital retailers and military organizations can incorporate into their systems without needing their own on-site quantum computers.
Essentially, it’s software with the core of a quantum algorithm that can be implemented in quantum computers as well as classical computers. Quantropi says that while many companies can generate very strong quantum entropy — very random numbers — no-one has been able to distribute this effectively at high speed over existing infrastructure.
In other words, over the internet.
This is essentially security as a cloud service, at gigabits per second.
Quantropi’s solution uses a quantum random number generator from Quintessence Labs out of Australia, then streams cryptography to clients via a process the company calls QEEP: quantum entropy expansion and propagation. The result is “perfect secrecy” in key encoding, according to a presentation the company made during a recent IEEE quantum event.
Of course, many companies claim to have the perfect solution for security, and seemingly, everyone gets hacked sooner or later.
Ngyuyen says Quantropi is working in closed beta with Fortune 100 companies as well demonstrating and testing its technology in universities like McGill. The company has multiple patents with over ten outstanding, he adds, and has been recommended by the National Research Council of Canada to be a nominee for the Science Startup Breakthrough of The Year.
Whether or not Quantropi has the final solution remains to be seen. But fixing security in the age of quantum computing is almost unimaginably important.
Because a working computer that can break high-standard encryption in the hands of bad actors would make the mammoth Solar Winds hack look like a script kiddie.
“[Quantum computing] really undermines and breaks today’s PKI encryption,” Ngyuyen says. “And if a criminal was going to basically leverage a quantum computer for bad reasons … you literally can start wars. You literally can basically empty people’s bank accounts … steal people’s identities … everything that we believe or, you know, is important to us, it’s going to be broken.”
Source: Forbes
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