Frank Gardner is a security correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Image source, Getty ImagesImagine a world in which secret files are suddenly cracked open.
The computers developed over the past century work differently than quantum computers. They could become many, many times faster than machines today.
A normal computer would take a long time to break the multiple permutations of the encryptions that are used to protect data.
A future quantum computer could do this in a few seconds.
The computers could solve a lot of problems. The National Quantum Computing Centre in Harwell, Oxford, is being funded by the UK government.
There is more than one dark side.
A number of countries, including the US, China, Russia, and the UK, are investing huge sums of money to develop super-fast quantum computers with a view to gaining strategic advantage in the cyber-osphere.
Every day vast quantities of data, including yours and mine, are being taken without our permission and stored in data banks, ready for the day when quantum computers are powerful enough to decode it.
"From buying things online, banking transactions, social media interactions, everything we do is secured," says Harri Owen, chief strategy officer at the company PostQuantum.
Once a functioning quantum computer is able to break that encryption, it can almost instantly create the ability to clear bank accounts, to completely shut down government defence systems.
The chief executive of the Cambridge and Colorado-based company says that quantum computers will render useless most existing methods of encryption.
They are a threat to our way of life.
Really? That sounds apocalyptic, so why haven't we heard more about it?
If precautions were not taken, bad things would happen, says a Whitehall official who asked not to be named.
The efforts to mitigate have been going on for years. In the UK, all government data classified as "top secret" is already using new forms of encryption which researchers hope will be quantum-proof.
Image source, Getty ImagesTech giants like IBM, Intel, and Microsoft are working on solutions, as well as more specialist companies like Post-Quantum.
There is a beauty parade taking place at the US National Institute for Science and Technology just outside Washington DC. The aim is to establish a defence strategy that protects industry, government, academia and critical national infrastructure against the perils of the quantum apocalypse.
This will not be cheap.
Large amounts of heat are generated by quantum computing. One of the major security challenges of our time is the development of quantum-safe algorithms.
The alternative is simply not an option.
- Computer hacking
- Quantum computing
