The Hidden Risk to Modern Encryption
Most people trust that the passwords, bank accounts, medical records, and private messages they use every day are protected by standard encryption. Yet as quantum computing advances, many of today’s most widely used security tools could soon become breakable. This shift suggests that information stolen now might be saved and unlocked years later when machines gain the power to crack protections current hardware cannot touch.
World Quantum Readiness Day, observed on September 17, aims to raise awareness of this specific threat. Experts now urge governments, private companies, and research institutions to prepare for a more secure future by adopting post-quantum cryptography, or PQC. Michel Kinsy, an associate professor at the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State University, leads the Secure, Trusted, and Assured Microelectronics, or STAM, Center. He argues that the timeline for this transition is much shorter than many observers assume.
Why Organizations Cannot Wait for Quantum Arrival
Moving to quantum-safe systems is not a task companies can finish overnight. It is a multiyear effort that requires identifying where encryption lives within hardware, software, devices, and supply chains. Teams must then test and deploy new standards without breaking their current operations. History offers a clear lesson on the speed of such changes. It took organizations nearly a decade to move away from the SHA-1 security algorithm once it showed signs of vulnerability.
This delay creates a distinct danger known as harvest now, decrypt later. Attackers do not need a working quantum computer today to profit from one in the future. They can capture encrypted traffic now, store the data, and wait for the technology to catch up. If an organization holds data that must remain secret for the next 15 years, the clock is already ticking. Protecting such information with quantum-vulnerable methods today leaves a genuine security gap.
Understanding the Technical Threat
Quantum computers threaten the public-key cryptography used to secure web browsing, digital signatures, and key exchanges. These systems rely on mathematical problems that take conventional computers an impractical amount of time to solve. A large, stable quantum machine could run algorithms like Peter Shor’s algorithm to recover private keys from public information. However, this does not mean all classical encryption will suddenly fail.
Symmetric encryption, which protects most stored data, is far less affected and remains viable with larger key sizes. The immediate priority is updating public-key systems. Kinsy notes that PQC does not rely on the same mathematical problems as current standards. Instead, these new algorithms use different approaches that researchers believe remain hard for both classical and quantum computers to solve. NIST finalized its first set of PQC standards in 2024, providing a roadmap for agencies to follow.
AI and the Future of Secure Infrastructure
Artificial intelligence adds a layer of complexity to this transition. AI accelerates quantum computing research, particularly in qubit design and error correction, which could shorten the timeline to a functional machine. Furthermore, AI tools are being used to search for weaknesses in existing cryptographic algorithms. These models also create a new category of information worth protecting. Data used to train models and proprietary weights often need long-term confidentiality, making them targets for future decryption.
Securing this infrastructure requires more than just replacing software. It demands a workforce that understands both the mathematical theory of PQC and the practical vulnerabilities of hardware implementation. At the STAM Center, students implement algorithms in real hardware to see how they perform on constrained systems. This hands-on experience remains vital. As Phoenix pursues its own strategy to become a national hub for quantum technologies, this combination of scientific research, industry partnerships, and training will define which organizations successfully navigate the quantum shift.