Cloud Security Alliance's Newest Research Report Examines a Day Without Safe Cryptography

What would happen to our daily lives if our most commonly used methods of encryption were to suddenly disappear?

SEATTLE, WA and SAN FRANCISCO, CA – RSA Conference Booth #1039 - April 19, 2018 – The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, today released its newest research report, "A Day Without Safe Cryptography”. Authored by the CSA Quantum-Safe Security Working Group, the white paper serves to illuminate the importance of building and using encryption tools that will work as quantum computing accelerates into reality. It goes on to examine the consequences should the encryption tools on which we rely be rendered ineffective.

“A company is only as secure as the business systems with which it connects,” said Jane Melia, Quantum Safe Security Working Group co-chair and Vice President Strategic Business Development at QuintessenceLabs. “Moving toward effective quantum-safe security will demand that a company’s full business ecosystem be involved and invested. The working group intends that this paper serves as a first step in achieving the end-goal of quantum-safe security."
“The effect of broken encryption tools and services cannot be overstated. If bad actors can overcome current defensive objectives, it will threaten every aspect of our daily social, business and governmental activities, the operational and economic impact of which may take years to rebuild,” said Bruno Huttner, Quantum-Safe Security Working Group co-chair and Director of Quantum Space Programs in the Quantum-Safe division of IDQuantique. “Those that are first to implement quantum-safe security will reap both the rewards of quantum computing, as well as see dramatically reduced costs for insurance and security defenses.”

The paper examines such topics as:

• What is quantum computing?
• How will quantum computing replace existing cryptography and encryption at risk?
• What would our digital lives look like if bad actors use quantum computing to break encryption?
• What will quantum-safe encryption look like? What are the next steps forward?

The work of the Quantum Safe Security Working Group addresses critical generation and transmission methods to help the industry understand quantum-safe methods for protecting their networks and their data. The Working Group examines two differing technologies:

• Quantum key distribution, or QKD, which is a physics-based technology to deliver keys securely, and
• Post-quantum cryptography, which refers to mathematical algorithms that do not suffer from the same weakness vis-à-vis quantum computing that existing algorithms do.

Individuals interested in becoming involved in the future research and initiatives of this group are invited to join the group.

A Day Without Safe Cryptography is a free resource available from the CSA.