Quantum Safe Cryptography – A Quantum Leap Needed Now

Whether we realize it or not, cryptography is the fundamental building block on which our digital lives are based. Without sufficient cryptography and the inherent trust that it engenders, every aspect of the digital human condition we know and rely on today would never have come to fruition much less continue to evolve at its current staggering pace. The internet, digital signatures, critical infrastructure, financial systems and even the remote work that helped the world limp along during the recent global pandemic all rely on one critical assumption – that the current encryption employed today is unbreakable by even the most powerful computers in existence. But what if that assumption was not only challenged but realistically compromised?

This is exactly what happened when Peter Shor proposed his algorithm in 1995, dubbed Shor’s Algorithm. The key to unlocking the encryption on which today’s digital security relies is in finding the prime factors of large integers. While factoring is relatively simple with small integers that have only a few digits, factoring integers that have thousands of digits or more is another matter altogether. Shor proposed a polynomial-time quantum algorithm to solve this factoring problem. I’ll leave it to the more qualified mathematicians to explain the theory behind this algorithm but suffice it to say that when coupled with a quantum computer, Shor’s Algorithm drastically reduces the time it would take to factor these larger integers by multiple orders of magnitude.

Prior to Shor’s Algorithm, for example, the most powerful computer today would take millions of years to find the prime factors of a 2048-bit composite integer. Without Shor’s algorithm, even quantum computers would take such an inordinate amount of time to accomplish the task as to render it unusable by bad actors. With Shor’s Algorithm, this same factoring can potentially be accomplished in a matter of hours.

That being said, even with this breakthrough algorithm, it still requires a quantum computer to compromise today’s encryption. This begs the question, why do we as an industry need to address this issue now, before we have practical quantum computers? First and foremost, this eventuality is not a potential but an inevitable consequence of the current progress of quantum computing. According to Dr. Michele Mosca of the Institute of Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, “There is a 1 in 7 chance that fundamental public-key crypto will be broken by quantum by 2026 and a 1 in 2 chance of the same by 2031.” These timeframes and the ability to store current sensitive data gives rise to the second reason – a concept called “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later.” A materially significant percentage of sensitive data will still be relevant in this time frame – and that is data that is not currently protected against quantum-based decryption techniques. This concept allows bad actors to “harvest” the data now and act upon it later when technology has matured to make the decryption of that data practical and viable.

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As such, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been leading the charge since 2016 for the standardization of quantum safe cryptography. After multiple rounds of algorithm submissions, four finalists were selected in July of 2022 with three of those four algorithms being created by IBM along with their industry and academic partners. This is not entirely surprising given that aside from their work on quantum safe encryption, IBM is also a driving force in quantum computing and plans to introduce a new 4k qubit system by 2025 and is even working on solving the technical issues to eventually get to a 1 million qubit system. Between these four algorithms, public-key encryption and key establishment as well as digital signatures are addressed.

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These quantum-safe cryptographic algorithms could not have come at a better time. Digital infrastructure such as passports, vehicles, critical infrastructure and public transportation take a long time to upgrade, with some time periods spanning 10-50 years. Use of that digital infrastructure is already pervasive and will only continue to exponentially increase as new use cases and applications are introduced. The more we rely upon digital infrastructure and the more sensitive data we store in that digital infrastructure, the larger the motivation for bad actors to compromise the encryption that protects that data. The industry is poised to take a quantum leap in both cryptography and computing. The time is now to take that leap.