NIST Chief of Computer Science Division Believes ” ‘relevant’ quantum codebreaking is still years away…”
NIST official says post-quantum environment still years away
Key points…
+ Matthew Scholl, chief of the Computer Science Division at NIST, told members at a recent Information Security Privacy Advisory Board meeting that the agency still believes “relevant” quantum codebreaking is still years away.
“I want to assure people that the step from Google’s announcement of quantum supremacy to having a quantum machine that is cryptographically relevant — meaning something that will actually be able to break our current public-key infrastructure — is really a significantly wide gap,” Scholl said.
+ “We still feel quite confidently — not just NIST but the global community that we’re working with — that the timeline that we’re on for developing and deploying quantum-resistant encryption standards is still relevant,” he said. “So we’re still looking at 2022 to 2024 for having those standards complete.”
+ Scholl said NIST is working with the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence and industry partners to develop a guidance document to assist organizations as they work through the cost and technical difficulties associated with transitioning from older forms of encryption to the newer post-quantum algorithms. However, he reiterated that those standards are still being evaluated and developed, and agencies shouldn’t move too quickly to replace their encryption before the new standards are fully vetted.
Source: FCW. Derek B. Johnson, NIST official says post-quantum environment still years away…
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