We'll see the first fully operational quantum attack on cryptography in about two years.

Hi and welcome to malicious life B-sides.

I'm Renn Levy.

In our narrative episode we usually focus on the past telling stories of interesting hacks and the like B-side episodes are where we can usually lift our gaze and focus on the present, and in this case, the future.

Quantum computing is fascinating and revolutionary technology that has been gaining significant ground in the past

decade with researchers from both academia and the commercial sector, such as Google and IBM, announcing major breakthroughs every few weeks.

One of the biggest promises of quantum computing is a prospect of revolutionizing encryption.

Quantum computers are expected to be able to easily crack even the most

advanced classic encryption algorithms. Our guest today, Mike Redding, CitiO of Quantropy, a company specializing in quantum

encryption, claims that this revolution is even closer than most of us think.

He calls it Why2 Quantum and thinks that modern organizations need to start thinking about

overalling their encryption algorithms, much like they were forced to fix their software in preparation for Y2K 20 odd years ago.

Before joining Quantropy, Mike was the managing director and co-founder of Accenture Ventures, where he incubated

and launched technology innovations for enterprises across multiple industries.

He speaks frequently on the impact of emerging technology on large

organizations. Mike spoke with Nate Nelson, a senior producer, about quantum encryption and its impact on modern cryptography and the challenges associated

with coming up with new encryption algorithms that can stand up to the power of quantum computing.

Enjoy the interview.

Mike, something has been naggy at me as I prepared for this interview.

We're about to have a whole conversation about quantum cybersecurity and yet the fact

remains that there are no fully operational quantum computers in the world today,

so why should I or anybody else care?

...