QLabs CEO Discusses Approaches to Cybersecurity for Quantum Computing

(ZDNet) CEO of Australian quantum cybersecurity firm QuintessenceLabs (QLabs) Vikram Sharma recently detailed the plan of the global security industry as it prepares for the reality of a quantum computer within the next decade. “Because of the advances in quantum computation, they are going to put at risk many of the mechanisms we use to secure information today. But interestingly enough, quantum technologies can also provide some of the solutions to mitigating against this risk or meeting this challenge,” he said.
There are three broad approaches towards mitigating against the problem, with the first taking the mathematical problems used today that will be broken and replace them with more difficult mathematics. The US National Security Agency (NSA) has also been involved in a second approach–asking organizations to move to large symmetric keys, rather than asymmetric keys. The third area is quantum key distribution, where instead of using mathematics to protect the transport of the key from one party to another, QLabs and others are using the principals of physics.