Trying to wrap your head around quantum computing and post-quantum cryptography? You’ve come to the right place! The brilliant Rafael Misoczki, Cryptography Engineer at Google, joins Camille for today’s episode of What That Means to shed some light, offering accessible insight into what might seem intimidating concepts.

We cover:

• What post-quantum cryptography is

• The usefulness and weaknesses of quantum computing

• Why businesses should change crypto algorithms sooner rather than later

• An underlooked form of cyber attack that could heavily affect people in the future

• When we can expect quantum computers to become more mainstream

... and more!

Be sure to tune in!

The views and opinions expressed are those of the guests and author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Intel Corporation.

Here are some key take-aways:

• When you’re dealing with quantum computing, you’re visiting both nodes (0 and 1) simultaneously.

• Quantum computing is great for solving some problems, but not all.

• Changing a crypto algorithm takes a significant amount of time, so businesses should consider transitioning as soon as possible.

• Adversaries may be harvesting encrypted data right now with the intention of breaking it later.

• We could reasonably expect to see quantum computers adept at breaking RSA arrive on the scene within the decade; for that reason, companies should be motivated to start planning and transitioning.

Some interesting quotes from today’s episode:

“Quantum computing will be very good to solve some very specific computational problems, but not all.”

“It’s all about finding, detecting or creating new computational problems that can resist quantum attacks and then build crypto systems on top of that.”

“We are dealing with quantum phenomena all the time, right? But there are several layers of interpretation of this phenomena. And my understanding is that what the previous generation could see was only one layer above.”

“If you are using a quantum computer, you are essentially visiting both nodes, 0 and 1 at the same time. And if you keep doing this for several layers, you start gaining what we call an exponential speed up because you are not going at every layer, you're going from one node, to two, then four, then eight...all powers of two. And this provides an exponential speed up. You can verify many more nodes than you would be able to using classical computing.”

“Crypto agility is really just a set of techniques that make systems more easily updatable. And this is definitely something that architects now can do, no need to wait.”

“The process of changing the crypto algorithm is something that takes a long time. So these markets and industries should start looking into this transition as soon as possible, because it's a long process. It's a multi-year (if not a decade-long) process to change a crypto algorithm.”

“There is also another attack that actually is relevant, which is that some adversaries might be now harvesting encrypted data to break it later. That's what we call store-now-break-it-later.”

“This would be a crypto apocalypse, because we wouldn’t be able to trust our banking systems, our governments and information systems, in general.”