The National Institute of Standards and Technology today announced that it has finalized a principal set of encryption algorithms designed to withstand cyberattacks from a quantum computer. The standards are the result of an eight-year effort by NIST to strengthen computer encryption capabilities amid advances in technology.
Quantum computers theoretically would be far more powerful than today’s computers, and many experts believe a quantum computer capable of breaking current encryption methods is just a decade away, according to NIST. The three standards unveiled by the agency contain the encryption algorithms’ computer code, instructions for how to implement them and their intended uses. NIST also said it will continue to evaluate two other sets of algorithms that could one day serve as backup standards.
“These finalized standards include instructions for incorporating them into products and encryption systems,” said NIST mathematician Dustin Moody, who heads the post-quantum cryptography standardization project. “We encourage system administrators to start integrating them into their systems immediately, because full integration will take time.”
Moody added that there is no need to wait for future standards. “Go ahead and start using these three,” he said. “We need to be prepared in case of an attack that defeats the algorithms in these three standards, and we will continue working on backup plans to keep our data safe. But for most applications, these new standards are the main event.”
