Cyberattacks by China, possibly related to US-China tensions over COVID-19 are on the rise. This follows a long pattern of high-stakes heists of U.S. intellectual property and national security secrets by China, which in recent years ranged from stealing Equifax’s data on half of all Americans to the U.S. Government’s files on almost all federal employees. China is relentlessly amassing an enormous data bank of sensitive information on all Americans, government officials, and private citizens. One in five companies report they have had their intellectual property stolen by China within the last year.
The arrival of quantum computers — which bring the potential to easily break the strongest encryption available today — is a gamechanger for nefarious actors and nation states. Suddenly, the stockpiles of highly sensitive government and corporate data that have already been stolen will become readable, clear as day.
Information is our most critical resource — and if we are to remain a world economic leader, we can’t sit back while China acquires the keys to the kingdom. John Prisco explains why the U.S. must adopt a defense-in-depth approach to the quantum threat – one that combines post-quantum cryptography (PQC) with quantum key distribution (QKD) in his opinion piece, Racing Against China, ‘Quantum Supremacy’ And Economic Supremacy Are One And The Same featured in Cybersecurity Magazine.