There are many stories that we have all heard about hacking, identity theft, and other nuisance or criminal exploits involving digital assets. We all try to safeguard our systems and our data, but it is extremely difficult now that there is so much data and so many devices involved. The amount of interaction and the amount of data has multiplied many times over with the introduction of smartphones, cellular networks, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Who had the foresight to realize that their refrigerator or car could provide an easy way to hack corporate or government networks? We really need to “protect” everything. A stark illustration of how rampant hacking is becoming is the existence of “Collection #1,” which is a huge folder of data exposing almost 800,000 email addresses and around 21 million passwords, all in one folder. approximately 87 gigabytes in size. Unlike breaches with criminal intent, Collection #1 is only available on a public hacking website for anyone to see, not for sale!
The security of digital devices and data is still based on encryption, the process of recoding data using a digital “key” and unlocking that data only with the same identical “key.” Individuals and businesses can maximize the effectiveness of encryption by using “strong” passwords, which mix uppercase letters, symbols, and numbers. Cracking modern encryption keys is very difficult, as encryption has come a long way from the original method used by Julius Caesar of simply choosing a space offset for each letter of the alphabet, eg: offset of “2” where each “A” is recoded as “C”, etc. There are only 25 possibilities for this recording, so it’s pretty easy to crack a C-section code. Data encryption has come a long way in the intervening years and is now considered quite unhackable. The easiest targets for hackers are the passwords typed on your desk and the loose conversations at the water cooler.
However, with the rise of quantum computing, the ability to crack secure encryption keys is ever closer, simply because quantum computers are so fast and powerful that they can attempt a lot of guesses in a very short time. This is the “brute force” trick, where, with enough guesswork, the correct key will eventually be found. What might currently take 100 years of guessing with a fast, classical computer might take just 5 years with quantum computing.
Quantum computers use the fundamentals of quantum mechanics to speed up calculations, using flexible qubits instead of classical bits that can only be ZERO or ONE. The qubits can be either, both, or something in between. With quantum computing, we should have the ability to design algorithms built specifically to solve specific problems, such as breaking codes and designing uncrackable codes. Current leaders in the quantum computing space include IBM, Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, Intel, D-Wave Systems, and Rigetti Quantum Computing. The race is on to see who will dominate with Quantum solutions for the broad market. In the next 10 years, the number of Quantum computers will likely exceed the number of classical computers, ushering in a new era of computing, with speeds and power unimaginable just a few years ago. This will require more stable hardware, commercial software development platforms, and large and fast cloud computing capabilities.
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