More Than Half (54%) of Cybersecurity Officials Worry About Impact of Quantum Computing on Tech Security

(FormTek) More than half (54%) of cybersecurity professionals have said that they’re worried of the impact of quamtum computing on tech security, according to Neustar International Security Council (NISC). Keeping a watchful eye on developments, 74 percent of organizations said that they are paying close attention to the technology’s evolution, with 21 percent already experimenting with their own quantum computing strategies.
Dr. Jill Pipher, President of the American Mathematical Society, has said that “the future of the powerful quantum computing threatens the cryptographic infrastructure that we’ve spent decades developing… Quantum computers of the future threaten the security of this infrastructure.”
John Prisco, CEO of Quantum Xchange, warns that US investments are small compared to those of China and even in Europe. China will be opening the National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences this year, funded with more than $10 billion. Europe has a quantum initiative called OPENQKD which combines fiber optics and satellites to create a network that can server 13 nations. The United States in comparison has allocated only about $1.5 billion for quantum research. Prisco worries that China is stealing as much information as it can now, even if it is unreadable in today’s encrypting, but it will become readable in the future when quantum computing becomes available. He calls it a “harvest today, read tomorrow” strategy.