Bitcoin’s private keys won’t be breached any time soon. But the industry still needs to transition to a “post-quantum cryptography.”
A report that Chinese researchers have employed a D-Wave quantum computer to breach encryption algorithms used to secure bank accounts, top-secret military data and crypto wallets is at first glance a matter for deep concern.
“This is the first time that a real quantum computer has posed a real and substantial threat to multiple full-scale SPN [Substitution-Permutation Network] structured algorithms in use today,” wrote Shanghai University scientists in a peer-reviewed paper, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Oct. 11.
The paper talks about breaking RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) encryption, one of the oldest and widely used public-key cryptosystems.
