‘Post-Quantum Cryptography’ Needed for Retroactive Risks

(Enterprisealnews) A coordinated, long-term approach is needed to confront the “retroactive risk” to secure communications posed by quantum computing, warns a recentreport from the Rand Corporation that emphasizes that code-breaking applications based on quantum technologies could emerge by as early as the next decade.
The government-backed think tank, asserts that current encryption schemes will likely prove inadequate as quantum computing moves into the mainstream. Those risks underscore the need for what the report calls “postquantum cryptography,” or PQC, to fend off future threats to highly-secured communications.
“The advent of quantum computers presents retroactive risk because information being securely communicated today without postquantum cryptography may be captured and held by others now in order to be decrypted and revealed later once quantum computers are created,” said Evan Peet, a co-author of the report and a RAND economist.