Hacking bitcoin wallets: the dangerous future of cryptocurrencies. Cryptographers rush to devise a workaround.
Although quantum computing is still in its infancy, governments and private sector companies like Microsoft and Google are working to make it happen. Within a decade, quantum computers could be powerful enough to breach the cryptographic security that protects smartphones, bank accounts, email addresses, and, which worries many investors, cryptocurrency wallets.
“If you had a quantum computer today and you were a state sponsor, China, for example, you could break the cryptocurrency market, ” Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, a cryptocurrency mining specialist, recently told CNBC.
This is precisely why cryptographers around the globe are competing to design an encryption protocol that resists this technology.
Can there come a time when quantum hacking exists?
Right now, everything works with the so-called asymmetric cryptography , which allows establishing a secure connection between two parties, mutually authenticating them and allowing the transfer of information between them. The idea is that a potential third party cannot decipher the information if the message is intercepted. This is the security that is currently used to access cryptocurrency wallets.
The problem is that “every financial institution, every login on your phone, everything is based on asymmetric cryptography, which is susceptible to being hacked with a quantum computer ,” explained Thiel, who was also director of Utimaco, one of the largest crypto companies in Europe and that has worked with entities such as Microsoft or Google on quantum encryption.
For this reason, this expert added that “the US National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) has been working on a new encryption standard for the future that is quantum computer-proof.”
Hacking bitcoin wallets: the dangerous future of cryptocurrencies. Cryptographers rush to devise a workaround.
Although quantum computing is still in its infancy, governments and private sector companies like Microsoft and Google are working to make it happen. Within a decade, quantum computers could be powerful enough to breach the cryptographic security that protects smartphones, bank accounts, email addresses, and, which worries many investors, cryptocurrency wallets.
“If you had a quantum computer today and you were a state sponsor, China, for example, you could break the cryptocurrency market, ” Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, a cryptocurrency mining specialist, recently told CNBC.
This is precisely why cryptographers around the globe are competing to design an encryption protocol that resists this technology.
Can there come a time when quantum hacking exists?
Right now, everything works with the so-called asymmetric cryptography , which allows establishing a secure connection between two parties, mutually authenticating them and allowing the transfer of information between them. The idea is that a potential third party cannot decipher the information if the message is intercepted. This is the security that is currently used to access cryptocurrency wallets.
The problem is that “every financial institution, every login on your phone, everything is based on asymmetric cryptography, which is susceptible to being hacked with a quantum computer ,” explained Thiel, who was also director of Utimaco, one of the largest crypto companies in Europe and that has worked with entities such as Microsoft or Google on quantum encryption.
For this reason, this expert added that “the US National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) has been working on a new encryption standard for the future that is quantum computer-proof.”
