PKI Consortium blog

Could Quantum Computing Help Stave Off the Next Great Pandemic?
June 11, 2020 by Patrick Nohe (GlobalSign) Quantum RSA SSL/TLS
As we settle into month two of isolation in the world’s collective battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, one talking point you’ve undoubtedly heard time and again is that this won’t truly be over until there’s a vaccine. A post about how quantum computing could simplify it and reduce the time it takes exponentially.

Preparing for Quantum Computing
April 21, 2020 by Diana Gruhn (Entrust) ECC IETF NIST Quantum RSA
Quantum computing is advancing, and while experts are not sure when there will be a quantum computer powerful enough to break the RSA and ECC cryptographic algorithms that are currently in use, many are operating under the assumption that this can happen within a 10-15 year timeframe.

Quantum Computing: Real or Exaggerated Threat to the Web PKI?
August 30, 2017 by Dean Coclin, Tim Hollebeek Encryption PKI Quantum RSA SSL/TLS Web PKI

Twenty years ago, paying your phone or electric bill involved receiving it in the mail, writing a check and mailing it back to the company. Today, that has largely been replaced by email and web-based payment submittals. All of this is secured by digital certificates and encryption, which provide privacy and authentication of information transiting the open Internet (aka Web PKI).

The web PKI is predominantly secured by RSA encryption algorithms; mathematical theorems which have been improved over time. These algorithms depend on the difficulty of computers in factoring large prime numbers in a reasonable time. The current state of binary computers would require 6.4 quadrillion (See: https://www.digicert.com/TimeTravel/math.htm) years to solve this mathematical problem and subsequently decrypt a message.