Need for Quantum Cryptography

Cryptography is an ancient technique of encoding secret messages in a form that only the intended receiver can decode the message. Over time the need of sending and receiving messages in a secured manner has increased. Its use in our day to day life is so normalized that it tends to go unnoticed. From “encrypted” WhatsApp messages to credit cards in our wallets, sophisticated methods are being used to stop data leakage, i.e., increasing cyber security. Our private information is susceptible to authorize access.

The existing encryption technologies are becoming obsolete as faster processing systems are coming into the picture. On a day-to-day basis, we hear about the hacking of Twitter accounts, sometimes Facebook who is regarded as “Tech giants”. Even the servers of government agencies around the world are prone to malicious attacks. The latest addition to the long lists of servers and/or services that have been attacked/hacked are the servers of Air India (the national airline of India) and the COWIN App (an Indian portal designed to provide appointment booking service for the vaccination against COVID19). There exist certain limitations of the present cryptographic techniques. Presently used classical cryptographic techniques are based on the complexity of the computational tasks (mathematical problems). A hard mathematical problem that cannot be solved using available computational resources within the time for which encoded information must be kept secret forms the basis of a classical cryptographic scheme. There are many such hard problems, and those have led to many schemes of classical cryptography.
Interestingly, some of those hard problems can be solved quickly using quantum computers. This observation made many of the classical cryptographic schemes vulnerable in the presence of quantum computers. This is where quantum cryptography comes into the picture. Interestingly, quantum cryptography can provide unconditional security, which is desirable but unachievable in the classical world.

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Article sent by: Anshul Singhal, MSc Physics.

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of Quantuse.