Quantum is coming: 3 tips to implement post-quantum cryptography today

One day, someday soon, the world will meet the next milestone in computer science, and when it arrives, cybersecurity will never be the same, forcing organizations and cloud service providers to radically rethink how they secure their data and protect it from increasingly sophisticated threat actors.

Called “Q-day,” this moment will mark the point in human development when quantum computing will have evolved to the point that traditional RSA encryption will have been rendered obsolete, radically shortening the time it takes to discover the right encryption key from millenia to seconds. This immense computing power will allow threat actors to take full control over any hard drive in the world – and, more importantly, any data stored on it.

Given that hard-disk drive (HDD) life cycles run approximately five years, organizations and cloud service providers can’t wait until after Q-day to take action. Instead, they should ensure that their high-capacity enterprise hard drives include the latest safeguards before quantum computing becomes mainstream and a standard weapon in threat actors’ toolbelts.

The greatest code breaking machine in history

Quantum computers are much faster than networked computers and supercomputers at certain tasks, allowing them to solve problems that remain practically impossible for modern machines. Already, scientists around the world are using quantum computing to create more accurate climate change models, optimize power grid optimization and better understand how black holes behave.