The Concept of Trust in Cybersecurity
Everyone is talking about the strength of cryptography and its susceptibility to new generations of computing programs. For example, there’s a wealth of discussion about preferable algorithms that should be used for authentication and encryption. Much of this debate is framed within the context of fears and assumptions about a future in which quantum computing holds sway.
Quantum computing may make it possible to execute certain algorithms in a matter of seconds instead of days. The ramifications, should this eventuality come to pass, are huge, not just for cryptocurrencies but for the entire Internet. A quantum breakthrough raises the risk of breaking most of our existing encrypted security protocols — think online banking, VPNs, database storage, digital signatures, blockchains, and disk encryption. Although it looks like functional quantum computers are still a few years off, no one can be entirely sure quite how well they will work against cryptography until they are readily available.