As many of us who follow such things are aware, quantum computing poses a significant threat to cryptography. As a result, we've spent the last few years watching quantum computers become increasingly powerful, crossing our fingers that the latest developments won't result in an unplanned trip back to the Stone Age for everyone.
Apparently, the clever people at NIST did not simply take the somewhat flawed approach of simply crossing one's fingers to deal with the problem, but instead actively worked to solve it. After six years of deliberation, NIST has announced that four quantum-resistant encryption algorithms will be included in its Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization, with another four in the works.
On the other side of the fence, criminal elements are said to have gathered a large amount of data, which they are currently unable to decrypt but hope to be able to do in the future. Surprisingly, this practise is so common that it has its own name: Store Now Decrypt Later (SNDL). It makes sense, I suppose, that once quantum computers become reasonably stable and usable, the criminals who are currently making a lot of money from their nefarious IT endeavours will want to invest in such things in order to make even more money. It's interesting that they're already preparing for the possibility.
Over the next few years, new security technologies may emerge to protect against the rise of quantum computers being used in attacks against legitimate organisations. On this front, the coming years could be quite interesting...
If you want more technical information, go to https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2022/07/nist-announces-first-four-quantum-resistant-cryptographic-algorithms.
Personally, I'm just relieved that this will keep civilisation as we know it from collapsing for the time being!
