Tag Archive for: Quantum

Quantum Computer Strides Spur Cyber Defenders to Prep for ‘Y2Q’

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The US government is bracing for cybersecurity threats to everything from trade secrets to state secrets due to a long-anticipated shift toward smarter, faster computers built around quantum mechanics.

A new US law from late 2022, the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act, calls on federal agencies to develop strategies to prevent unauthorized access to vulnerable information technology in a future where more powerful devices could breach current defenses. Information protected using today’s methods of encryption will be at risk of exposure with the advance of quantum computing.

“We call it the ‘Y2Q’ moment,” said Denis Mandich, a former US intelligence official who co-founded Qrypt, a company that specializes in post-quantum cryptography. The ‘Y2Q’ moniker refers to a quantum equivalent of Y2K, when ringing in the year 2000 was projected to wreak havoc on computer systems because of a coding issue.

Defense and intelligence agencies so far have led federal efforts to prepare for a potential quantum-driven breakdown in digital defenses that could undermine US national security. The rest of the US government will have to step up efforts to gird for quantum cyber risks too, as will corporate America. Both have been beset by a steady stream of hacks and leaks already testing their ability to keep information safe.

Cryptography involves encoding sensitive communications or data so that only authorized parties can access it. If a hacker steals encrypted information, it’s designed to be unreadable without the right digital key.

State-sponsored hackers and cybercriminal syndicates, however, sometimes collect encrypted information they intend to unlock later as better computers become available, in what’s known as a “steal now, decrypt later” technique.

Quantum computers could pose an “existential threat” for companies in industries that invest heavily in research and development, such as pharmaceuticals or clean energy technology, if their intellectual property is stolen and decrypted by a competitor, Mandich said.

“So much data has already been harvested,” he said.

The government’s reliance on hardware and software vendors means its quantum…

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Researchers claim method to break encryption using existing quantum computer

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A group of Chinese researchers has claimed to be able to break a widely used encryption scheme with a quantum computer that already exists, creating a possible boon for surveillance and a crisis for data protection.

The two dozen researchers from seven research institutions in China authored a paper describing a method using a 372-qubit computer to break RSA encryption instead of the theoretical quantum computer with tens of millions of qubits that was previously thought to be needed.

The implications are serious.

CONGRESS WANTS FEDERAL AGENCIES TO DEPLOY QUANTUM-SAFE ENCRYPTION

“Quantum computing has the capability to break the encryption on which most enterprises, digital infrastructures, and economies rely, rendering today’s encryption methods useless,” said Bryan Ware, CEO of LookingGlass Cyber Solutions. “That means that all secrets are at risk — nuclear weapons, banks, business IP, intelligence agencies, among other things, are at risk of losing their confidentiality and integrity.”

Quantum computing is still in its infancy, but cybersecurity experts have worried that quantum computers will eventually become powerful enough to break popular encryption schemes within minutes instead of the thousands of years needed by conventional modern computers. That possibility was supposed to be several years away, however.

Just in December, Congress enacted a law requiring the Office of Management and Budget to prioritize federal agencies’ acquisition of IT systems using post-quantum cryptography in an effort to deal with future advances in quantum computing.

But if the Chinese researchers are correct, the future is now. In November 2022, IBM announced it had built a working 433-qubit computer, larger than the quantum computer the researchers say is needed to break RSA encryption.

Still, the researchers’ claims have been met with skepticism in some cybersecurity circles.

The Chinese research is theoretical, and the underlying research it’s based on is “highly controversial,” Ware told the Washington Examiner. The paper may…

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Quantum Technology: Gartner’s Hype Cycle and its Implications for National Security Policy

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The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three scientists “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violations of Bell Inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”. The press release dated October 04, 2022, noted that “the ineffable effects of quantum mechanics are starting to find applications and that the one very factor is how quantum mechanics allow two or more particles to exist in an entangled state and what happens to one of the particles of an entangled pair determines what happens to the other particle, even if they are far apart.

Quantum Technology

Quantum technology is any class of technology new or old that works by using the principles of quantum mechanics. Quantum technology revolutionises the concept of information processing from the earlier mechanical to digital mode a step further. It uses the dynamics of quantum physics or the behaviour of the universe’s smallest particles, the atom and the behaviour of matter at the sub-atomic scale. Quantum phenomenon is not new but was the basis of development of lasers and semi-conductors since the 1950s. Emerging quantum information technologies will lead to development of quantum computers, radars, cryptography and other systems by utilising the principles of quantum physics. At the very basic level, the technologies use the quantum principles of “entanglement” and “superposition” to share information by ways that are not possible in the classic electronic computers.

Superposition

Superposition is a term to describe the ability of any particle to exist across many states at the same time until it is measured so a particle is said to be in a “superposition” of all those possible states. Superposition has an implication on the concept of computing. Today’s computing involves information in bits; either zero or one. Quantum computers would process information in quantum bits or qubits which can be one, zero or a superposition of the two states which is huge number of possible states making computation exponentially faster than the most advanced available traditional computers today. In a coin analogy a bit is like a tossed coin…

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New Computer Makes Quantum Leap in Processing Power

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Algorithmic Warfare: New Computer Makes Quantum Leap in Processing Power

433-qubit IBM Osprey chip

IBM photo

NEW YORK, New York — As the world grapples with how to take advantage of emerging quantum computing technologies, IBM recently debuted its most advanced computer ever — and broke its own world record in the process.

Unveiled at the annual IBM Quantum Summit in New York, the Osprey computer has more than three times the computing power of the previous model. While the advancements in quantum are expected to impact all industries, the technology could have unique implications for how nations defend themselves, researchers said at the recent summit.

Quantum computers utilize basic units known as qubits as opposed to the 1s and 0s used by traditional computers. The computing power stems from the potential for each qubit to be both 1 and 0 simultaneously, rather than being restricted to one or the other.

At 433 qubits, IBM’s Osprey is the world’s largest quantum computer, surpassing the former largest system in the world, IBM’s 127-qubit computer Eagle.

“We’re living in a moment where computing with a capital C, as I like to call it, is going through one of the most exciting moments since the advent of digital computers in the 1940s,” said Dario Gil, senior vice president and director of IBM research.

“It is an undeniable amount of technical progress that is occurring, and the rate of pace is only accelerating,” he said during the summit.

Creating larger quantum computers increases the ability for the computer to solve complex problems. But stringing together more qubits creates more “noise,” a term meaning interference with the state of the bits in the computer that affects the outcome of the calculations run on it.

As the number of bits without error increases, the closer the quantum computer gets to reaching its full potential. In addition to error issues, current quantum computers are prohibitively large and researchers are continuing to work on…

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