Government approval sought for quantum encryption

Stephen Withers
Friday, 14 March 2008 08:15

Business IT - Security

Combining classical and quantum keys may buy the partners that time once DSD approval is obtained, and as Ribordy pointed out, id Quantique's close links with the University of Geneva may help with that trust.

According to a Senetas spokesperson, criminal elements are known to be warehousing stolen encrypted data in anticipation of the arrival of technology that will allow its decryption while the data still has value.

"There's a lack of acceptance that these things happen because it looks like something from the movies," said DuBois.

Furthermore 'man in the middle' attacks (where a communications link is interrupted then restored with the intruder acting as an intermediary unknown to the two parties) have featured in "more than three cases" in Australia during the last eight months where banks and their customers have lost amounts in the hundreds of millions of dollars, he said.

Quantum cryptography is by its nature immune from such attacks as any attempt to observe the key changes it, and is available from Senetas for as little as $10,000 per endpoint plus approximately $60,000 for the quantum unit itself (only one is required per network),

The first real-world use of quantum encryption (which used Senetas and id Quantique products) was to protect online voting in Switzerland last October.

According to Ribordy, "the sales cycle is quite long" for this type of product, with potential customers usually conducting tests before adding the devices to the following year's budget. Banks and industries concerned about protecting their intellectual property are expected to be among the first customers, with interest being shown in southeast Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

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