Quantum Decryption of RSA is Much Closer than Expected

For decades, the quantum threat to RSA and ECC encryption has been tied to Shor’s algorithm and the assumption that we would need million-qubit quantum computers to make it practical. A newly announced algorithm challenges that assumption and suggests the breaking point could arrive far sooner than expected.

There’s a new contender in quantum cryptanalysis. The Jesse-Victor-Gharabaghi (JVG) quantum decryption algorithm is faster and requires fewer quantum resources than Shor’s algorithm.

Breaking business and the internet has long been the accepted result of combining quantum computers and Shor’s algorithm to solve the factorization problem employed by Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). But Shor’s algorithm requires a relatively large quantum computer (comprising an estimated one million qubits); and that is still believed to be at least a decade away.

This time gap has allowed industry to believe it has time to undertake the massive ...