Chinese hackers could use quantum computers to decipher

Chinese hackers could target heavily encrypted datasets such as weapon designs or details of undercover intelligence officers, with the intention of unlocking them at a later date when quantum computing makes decryption possible, a report warns.

Analysts at Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm, say Chinese hackers could also steal pharmaceutical, chemical and material science research that can be processed by quantum computers capable of crunching through numbers at unprecedented speed.

In a report titled Chinese threats in the quantum era, the consultancy says encrypted data could be stolen by Chinese threat groups. It claims quantum-assisted decryption will arrive faster than quantum-assisted encryption, giving hackers an edge.

The report says that data with intelligence longevity, like biometric markers, covert intelligence officer and source identities, social security numbers, and weapons designs, can be increasingly stolen under the assumption that they can be decrypted. It says state-aligned cyber threat actors will start to steal or intercept previously unusable encrypted data.

It adds that there is a very small chance that quantum computing could break the latest encryption methods before 2030. The analysts say that quantum computing's advantages over classical computing are now used in everything from laptops to mobile phones are at least a decade away.

The report says that quantum computers' current abilities are more demonstrative than immediately useful, but their trajectory suggests that they will revolutionize many industries from pharmaceuticals to materials science and eventually undermine all popular public-key encryption methods in the coming decades.

Quantum computing is considered an exciting development. It could predict what a complex molecule might do, and thus pave the way for new drugs and materials, according to experts.

Booz Allen Hamilton believes that the country will surpass Europe and the US, where IBM recently made the most powerful quantum processor in quantum related research and development.

The report says that Chinese threat groups will probably collect encrypted data with long-term utility, which will be used to decrypt it with quantum computers. By the end of the 2020 s, Chinese threat groups will likely collect data that will allow quantum simulators to discover new economically valuable materials, pharmaceuticals and chemicals.