IBM Cloud Offers Quantum-Safe Cryptography Firsts

(SDX.Central) IBM researchers say they have unlocked the key to keep data safe from quantum computing attacks, and the vendor now offers quantum-safe cryptography support for key management and application transactions in IBM Cloud.
This makes it the industry’s “most holistic” quantum-safe cryptography for securing data, IBM Cloud execs claim, and it does this via open standards and open source technology.
Although this is still five to 10 years out, “we need to be prepared so that the algorithms are ready for the future,” said Raj Nagaratnam, distinguished engineer and CTO for cloud security at IBM. If an attacker today steals sensitive data protected by transport layer security (TLS) protocols or public and private encryption keys, “it has the risk of being broken by quantum computers in the future.”
IBM’s strategy for long-term security centers around the standardization of open source tools such as CRYSTALS and Open Quantum Safe, Nagaratnam explained. It also includes new encryption capabilities that can help customers adopt a quantum-safe cryptography approach for data in transit within IBM Cloud. This can help enterprises prepare for future threats in which hackers harvest encrypted data today with the intent to decrypt it later.