Investors dedicated $2.35 billion to quantum technology startups in 2022, according to McKinsey & Company. With quantum technologies proliferating, business leaders may be wondering whether quantum computing is appropriate and secure for their work.
They interviewed Mario Milicevic, principal engineer at connectivity hardware and software company MaxLinear and a member of IEEE, to talk about developments in quantum computing for research and cybersecurity.
How will quantum cryptography change cybersecurity?
When it comes to cybersecurity, quantum computing and other methods taking into account quantum states, such as quantum cryptography, could be used by attackers as much as by defenders. Quantum computers could potentially solve factoring problems to break encryption keys very quickly.
There are two elements of cybersecurity related to quantum computing to keep in mind, Milicivec said: Post-quantum cryptography or post-quantum encryption, in which one develops algorithms that would be resistant to attacks with a quantum computer.
Quantum key distribution, which is enabled by using quantum computers and a fiber optic cable embedded between two physical locations.
Companies including JPMorgan Chase, Toshiba, the global networking systems and software provider Ciena and ID Quantique in Switzerland are working on quantum key distribution. Research in quantum key distribution is ongoing as organizations try to solve problems such as errors introduced by the difficulty of maintaining the extremely low temperatures ideal for quantum computing and how to improve the stability of the qubits.
Quantum key distribution with fiber optics would enable organizations to quickly know whether someone had disrupted their connection.
Regarding quantum key distribution, Milicevic said, “If any attacker or eavesdropper were to somehow cut this fiber optic cable and insert some kind of device that would allow them to measure the light and then retransmit that light, they would actually disrupt what’s known as a quantum state of that light.”
That would make it “impossible” for a physical disruption to go undetected, Milicevic said.
