Britain requires a “colossal” overhaul of its cybersecurity systems to defend against future quantum computers, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned this week.
Speaking at the CYBERUK conference in Manchester, the body’s CTO Ollie Whitehouse urged organisations to start preparing now for a sweeping transformation in how digital security is built and maintained — warning of grave consequences if they don’t.
Quantum computers, once they reach a certain power threshold, could render current encryption methods obsolete. They could break security protocols that protect everything from financial transactions and medical records to military communications.
A critical part of preparing for this future is adopting post-quantum cryptography (PQC), Whitehouse said. PQC aims to defend against potential cyberattacks from quantum computers.
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It involves designing new encryption algorithms based on mathematical problems that are hard for both classical and quantum computers to solve. These algorithms are then integrated into existing systems to replace vulnerable encryption methods.
Whitehouse stressed, though, that the move to PQC won’t just be a software upgrade. It will require a “decade-long, national-scale technology change programme to uplift the foundations of our connected systems,” he said.
In March, the NCSC published guidance setting out clear timelines for the UK’s migration to PQC. It advised organisations to complete migration to PQC of all their systems, services, and products by 2035.
The race to secure systems against quantum threats
Across the world, governments are scrambling to prepare themselves for a world occupied by powerful quantum machines. Last year, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released several algorithms believed to be secure from quantum hacking.
There is also a cohort of tech startups that have emerged to help organisations get ready. One of them is UK-based PQShield, which raised $37mn last year for its software and hardware-based PQC solutions.
It’s still uncertain, however, whether PQC will withstand future quantum attacks, as no one knows how powerful the machines will ultimately become. That’s why other companies and governments are exploring Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), which uses quantum mechanics to securely transmit encryption keys as particles of light. These photons carry qubits — the basic units of quantum information.
Crucially, it is impossible to “listen in” on a QKD message without disturbing the quantum states. It would instantly alert both parties to eavesdropping. This makes the technology “untappable.”
For the NCSC, however, the primary safeguard against quantum threats, at least for now, is migrating to PQC.
Whitehouse described it as “a complex change programme that makes fixing the Millennium Bug look easy,” a nod to the massive efforts in the late 1990s to update computer systems unable to handle dates past 1999.
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