Nigel Edwards

And the problem is that quantum computers are a completely different model of computation to current hardware.

And that allows them to run algorithms in a reasonable amount of time on a quantum computer where it's not possible realistically to run it on a classical computer.

And so what that means is we have to find new algorithms which are based on problems for which there are no known quantum algorithms.

And so this is what the cryptographic algorithm

academic community have been doing and what NIST have been evaluating proposals from the community over more than a decade to determine the algorithms which are best suited to protect us from the threat of a quantum computer.

So the algorithms they standardize, there is no known algorithm which will run on a quantum computer that will compromise the security.

So there is a school of thought that the new algorithms, some of which were only standardized in 24, they're not battle-hardened, they're not sufficiently field-tested, whereas we understand RSA very well, for example, which has served us for multiple decades, and we know the properties of that.

And there are some eminent people and there's even some EU government institutions that are saying that you cannot discount the possibility of there being either a flaw in the algorithms and almost certainly will be flaws in implementations of the algorithms.

So the strategy that we're adopting in HPE is to sign software and firmware with both a classical RSA or ECDSA key, as well as with one of the newer quantum algorithms.

And what that does is it extends until somebody has a cryptographically relevant quantum computer.

If there were to be a flaw in one of the new PQC algorithms, then provided there is no cryptographically relevant quantum computer, we still have security.

Meanwhile, analysis on the new algorithms and the implementation of those new algorithms will continue.

We're not throwing away the classical algorithms.

We are using those as well as the new algorithms to provide the best possible security.

It's been a pleasure.

You need to keep your software up to date.

There are some web browsers out there that are deploying these new algorithms and they're protecting against the so-called harvest now, decrypt later attack.

So already some web browsers are protecting that.

So you need to keep your software up to date.

And then over time, as you buy new phones, buy new computers, the reputable vendors will be ensuring that those have the new PTC algorithms inside them.