Quantum Computers of Tomorrow Threaten Today’s Secrets

(Axios) Governments and companies need to immediately begin future-proofing their online security against coming quantum computers, which will be exponentially faster than current technology. A recent report from the RAND Corporation laid out a worrying scenario for governments, companies and anyone who has something they want to keep secret on the internet.
Report author Micahel Vermeer lays out a scenario where spies or cyber criminals today intercept messages or security credentials. Right now, there’s nothing they can do with their catch, as current computers would be unable to break encryption. But quantum computers in the future will, and if they hold onto those intercepted messages long enough, the bad guys would be able to use their quantum computing to finally read what they caught — with potentially devastating consequences.