In case you missed it, on September 20, together with the Potomac Officers Club, we hosted an informative webinar: Are your Cybersecurity Systems Quantum Resistant covering the state of emerging quantum threats such as Store Now Decrypt Later attacks.
The panel of government and industry experts included The Honorable Susan M. Gordon, a former principal deputy director of National Intelligence; Bill Newhouse, NIST’s Deputy Director of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), and Security Engineer at the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE); Dr. Dustin Moody, a mathematician in NIST’s Computer Security Division who leads the organization’s PQC efforts; and our own Jen Sovada, a retired USAF Colonel in the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance division and president of our Public Sector division.
When fault-tolerant quantum computers finally arrive, they will have the ability to crack the Public Key Encryption (PKE)standards that have protected the world’s data, communications, transactions and the privacy of its citizens for nearly 50 years. For the past six years, NIST has presided over a multinational consortium of top mathematicians and cryptographers from 25 countries to develop new quantum-resistant Post-Quantum Cryptography encryption algorithms that will become the new global encryption standard in 2024.
Even now, however, adversaries are launching SNDL attacks to steal sensitive encrypted data for future decryption when quantum computers become available. This poses an existential threat to governments and businesses all over the globe, which is why the time to act is now – and why this webinar is so timely and relevant.
The panelists discussed the insidious nature of SNDL attacks and their perpetrators, what solutions and countermeasures are being developed, what action government agencies have taken thus far, and what still needs to be done to protect our national security and global interests, critical infrastructure, our businesses and our citizens.
Given the complexity of federal and enterprise IT networks—and the fact that the quantum vulnerability assessment process may take years to complete—the speed at which organizations should begin and complete their migration process to new quantum-resistant algorithms is becoming more critical every day. Once encrypted data is stolen, there is no way to protect it.
We hope you find the webinar informative and insightful. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have on how, why or when your organization should begin its transition to PQC.
