Quantum computer | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A late-stage candidate encryption algorithm that was meant to withstand decryption by powerful quantum computers in the future has been trivially cracked by using a computer running Intel Xeon CPU in an hour's time. The algorithm in question is SIKE — short for Supersingular Isogeny Key Encapsulation — which made it to the  fourth round  of the Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) standardization process initiated by the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). "Ran on a single core, the appended  Magma   code  breaks the Microsoft  SIKE challenges  $IKEp182 and $IKEp217 in about 4 minutes and 6 minutes, respectively," KU Leuven researchers Wouter Castryck and Thomas Decru  said  in a new paper. "A run on the SIKEp434 parameters, previously believed to meet NIST's quantum security level 1, took about 62 minutes, again on a single core." The code was executed on an Intel  Xeon CPU E5-2630v2  at 2.60GHz, which w

In what appears to be the world's first quantum satellite transmission, China has successfully sent an "unbreakable" code over a long distance from an orbiting satellite to the Earth, achieving a milestone in the next generation encryption based on "quantum cryptography." In August last year, China launched the world's first quantum communication satellite into the Earth's orbit aboard a Long March-2D rocket to test the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics at space. Dubbed Quantum Science Satellite , nicknamed Micius or Mozi (Chinese: 墨子), the satellite was designed to establish a 'Hack-Proof' communications system in this age of global surveillance by transmitting unbreakable encryption keys from space to the ground. Now, it has been reported that using this satellite, the Chinese scientists at the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) project were able to send secret "quantum key distribution" (QKD) data by beaming photons

The  ransomware industry surged in 2023  as it saw an alarming 55.5% increase in victims worldwide, reaching a staggering 5,070.  But 2024 is starting off showing a very different picture.  While the numbers skyrocketed in Q4 2023 with 1309 cases, in Q1 2024, the ransomware industry was down to 1,048 cases. This is a 22% decrease in ransomware attacks compared to Q4 2023. Figure 1: Victims per quarter There could be several reasons for this significant drop.  Reason 1: The Law Enforcement Intervention Firstly, law enforcement has upped the ante in 2024 with actions against both LockBit and ALPHV. The LockBit Arrests In February, an international operation named "Operation Cronos" culminated in the arrest of at least three associates of the infamous LockBit ransomware syndicate in Poland and Ukraine.  Law enforcement from multiple countries collaborated to take down LockBit's infrastructure. This included seizing their dark web domains and gaining access to their backend sys

Quantum Computers – Boon or Bane? Quantum computers can perform operations much more quickly and efficiently even with the use of less energy than conventional computers, but that's bad news for encryption — a process which scrambles data according to a massively complex mathematical code. In theory, quantum computers can break almost all the existing encryption algorithms used on the Internet today due to their immense computing power. Quantum computers are not just in theories; they're becoming a reality. With countries like China that holds the top two position in the world's most powerful supercomputers (Sunway TaihuLight and Tianhe-2), followed by the United States' Titan, the day is not far when Quantum computers will work on an industrial scale. Although it's hard to move quantum computing to an industrial scale, it has become a matter of concern for the United States' National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) over the fact that

China has taken one more step forward towards achieving success in Quantum communication technology. China has launched the world's first quantum communications satellite into orbit aboard a Long March-2D rocket earlier today in order to test the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics at space. 'Hack-Proof' Communications System The satellite, dubbed Quantum Science Satellite, is designed to develop a ' Hack-Proof ' communications system in this age of global electronic surveillance and cyber attacks by transmitting uncrackable encryption keys from space to the ground. The 600-plus-kilogram Quantum Science Satellite , better known as Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) satellite, took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gobi Desert at 1:40 AM local time on a 2-year mission on Tuesday. The QUESS satellite will help China perform unprecedented levels of experiments in quantum communication by sending entangled photons from the satellite

In Brief What would you do if you get access to a Quantum Computer? IBM Scientists launches the world's first cloud-based quantum computing technology, calling the IBM Quantum Experience, for anyone to use. It is an online simulator that lets anyone run algorithms and experiments on the company's five-qubit quantum computer. Quantum computers are expected to take the computing technology to the highest level, but it is an experimental and enormously complex technology that Google and NASA are working on and is just a dream for general users to play with. Hold on! IBM is trying to make your dream a reality. IBM just made its new quantum computing project online ( with tutorials ), making it available for free to anyone interested in playing with it. Quantum Computers — Now A Reality! The technology company said on Wednesday that it is giving the world access to one of its quantum computing processors, which is yet an experimental technology that has the potential

Announcing the results of its experiment, Google says Quantum Computer is More than 100 Million times faster than a regular PC. Two years ago, Google and NASA ( National Aeronautics and Space Administration ) bought a D-Wave 2X quantum computer , which they have been experimenting at the U.S. space agency's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California for the past two years. The goal is to create a better way to solve highly complex problems in seconds rather than years. Also Read:  Fastest Operating System for Quantum Computing Developed By Researchers Now, a Google's Quantum AI team appears to have announced the results of its latest test on D-Wave 2X quantum computer, demonstrating that quantum annealing can outperform simulated annealing by over 108 times – that is 100,000,000 times faster . What is  Quantum Computers? Quantum computers can theoretically be so much faster because they take advantage of quantum mechanics. While traditiona

We are just one step closer to creating a Harry Potter or ' Star Trek '-style Transporter. However, When we talk about Teleportation, we don't typically mean Teleporting any matter from one place to another as in the Science-fiction Movies. Rather, Teleportation involves capturing the essential information about something — its " quantum state ", to recreate it exactly someplace else. A month ago, The Hacker News had reported the battle between Quantum computers and Encryption . Now, with the development of technology, the NIST Scientists have set a new record in the field of " Quantum Teleportation ", as they successfully Teleported a small amount of data ( called 'qubit' ) inside light particles over a distance of 60 miles ( 100 km ) through a network of optical fiber. Teleportation enables transfer of ' Quantum state ' of a Photon to another Photon in the same state residing remotely at a far-off distance. This Record being farthest than t

Sometimes, instead of black and white we tend to look out, how a grey would look? Yes, today we are going to discuss the 'entangling' or 'superpositioning' which is a power packed functionality of quantum computers. And simultaneously, how can they pose a threat when fully launched in the world. Superposition is a state in which a system can be in multiple stages i.e. it can be 'up' and 'down' at the same time. The Quantum systems can hit different modules of a problem simultaneously, split across possible versions of the universe. What are Quantum Computers? Quantum computers are going to be the next huge development in computing for processing data, with an ability to perform calculations thousands of times faster than today's modern supercomputers. Quantum computing is not well suited for tasks such as word processing and email, but it is ideal for tasks such as cryptography, modeling and indexing enormous databases. A quantum computer can compute in min

So far, we just have heard about Quantum computing that could make even complex calculations trivial, but there are no practical Quantum computers exist. However, the dream of Quantum computers could become a reality in coming future. Cambridge Quantum Computing Limited (CQCL) has build a new Fastest Operating System aimed at running the futuristic superfast quantum computers . The new operating system, dubbed  t|kit> , has been featured by CQCL's very own proprietary custom designed high-speed super mechanism, allowing the company to accurately impersonate the working of a quantum processor. " CQCL is at the forefront of developing an operating system that will allow users to harness the joint power of classical super computers alongside quantum computers, " the company said in a press release. " The development of t|ket> is a major milestone ." Quantum Computers — Soon be Reali ty Researchers have been working on significant activities to develop qu

With the rise in technology, the need of ultrafast quantum computer has also increased that can work on huge numbers and calculations at the same time. Quantum technology has long been a scientific dream, but now it is a step closer to becoming a reality after a team of scientists has figured out a way for a standard silicon chip to tackle quantum entanglement. Entanglement — a phenomenon in which multiple particles are connected to each other and act in uniform no matter their distance apart — is the key ingredient that promises to make ultrafast quantum computers and secure communications ( encryption ) far more powerful than conventional computing devices. The new research, detailed in The Optical Society's (OSA's) new high-impact journal Optica, describes how a multinational collaboration of boffins, for the first time, have created a new Micro-Ring Resonator that can generate a continuous supply of entangled photons; photons are essentially the particles that mak

When we talk about security, only one thing cames to our mind – ENCRYPTION . Encryption of our online messages, encryption of our emails, encryption of our voice call, encryption of our every personal data and communication that we have to keep away from cybercriminals and, if I am not wrong, also from government intelligence agencies, such as NSA and GCHQ. Eventually, secure encryption is mandatory need of our modern Internet, Mobile communication, financial transactions, network sensors, car keys, and many more. But, government agencies like NSA are trying hard to break every effort that we adopt to secure our personal and confidential data.  NSA is trying to develop a futuristic super computer called ' Quantum computer ' that could be capable of breaking almost every kind of Encryption used to protect banks, medical, business including top-secret information held by government around the world. NEARLY UNBREAKABLE ENCRYPTION So, need for new encryption schem

Image Credit: The guardian  If I say that  NSA (National Security Agency) will never stop spying on us then it won't be wrong. After the exposure of the large number of surveillance scandals including PRISM, DROPOUTJEEP, XKeyscore and many many more which are now publicly known as well as unknown, Will NSA ever stop Privacy  breach? Obviously ' NO' . That I can predict from another Snowden leak published by the Washington Post news website recently i.e. US National Security Agency (NSA) is trying to develop a futuristic super computer called ' Quantum computer'  that could be capable of breaking almost every kind of encryption on the computer used to protect banks, medical, business including top-secret information held by government around the world. The Project is specified as " Penetrating Hard Targets " in the document and is a part of $79.7 million research program. The Washington Post says that the research is being done at the University of Maryland