Google celebrated the 4th of July in 2023 with fireworks of its own, announcing that their new 70-qbit quantum computer had taken seconds to solve a problem that would see the world’s most advanced conventional supercomputer trundling for more than 47 years. If the result holds up to peer review, it is a milestone: the dawn of quantum supremacy over digital computing.
That’s great news for those eager to solve thorny problems, but it’s terrible for CISOs hoping to get a good night’s sleep. Among the wonderful things quantum computers will help with—climate change, renewables, pharmaceutical development, AI, and more—they also have the potential to break encryption algorithms that are the bedrock of all digital asset protection. With such compute power, quantum computers can brute-force-break legacy encryption by trying every possible key combination.
In response, researchers are developing quantum-safe cryptography, a class of algorithms that even fully realized quantum computers will be unable to crack. Four promising ones have been developed, but given that these are still mathematical functions, quantum risk remains. Moreover, there is no easy implementation of these protocols as of now. Then there’s quantum cryptography, which relies on the superposition of a wave function between entangled photons. It’s an elegant, if limited, solution, given that key pairs must be within a certain range, travel only via fiber, and cannot be sent to additional recipients.
A better way of countering the quantum threat
What a pain in the ass. Wouldn’t it be better if we could avoid the whole quantum brute force problem in the first place?
The answer, of course, is yes, but that hasn’t been possible until now. Rather than relying on higher or thicker walls, you could, instead, go all Brigadoon on your data—tucking it away in a wisp of cloud that hides it from everyone except those who have the permission to see it.
That’s the basic idea behind Xinsere. Our Distributed Permissioned Data technology obscures your critical records, keys, and files behind an impenetrable haze of cybersecurity. In our patent-pending process, your data gets fragmented, distributed, replicated, and encrypted into a worldwide node network. Then we hide the network map. On top of all that, we bind data permissions to an auditable blockchain. Only the person who owns the data and the people he or she designates can get the files. Once safely hidden in Xinsere, your data is safe from intrusions, loss, ransomware, misconfigurations, and social engineering. And, yes, quantum computers, too. Our level of defense-in-depth makes it computationally impractical—even for a full-scale quantum computer—to hack your data. There’s just too much fog for them to peer through and brute force every possible combination.
In truth, this is a problem for the future. Practical quantum computers are still years—maybe decades—away, but the cybersecurity industry is aflutter trying to find ways to counter the threat. It’s good to plan ahead, but we think CISOs worry less and sleep more knowing that there’s already a solution for securing data once the quantum era finally arrives.