A Europol-led panel established to address the issue said Friday that the European banking sector should begin planning now for quantum computers to be able to crack some types of encryption often used to protect sensitive data.
“For the financial industry, the advent of quantum computers poses a risk to customer confidentiality and peer communications, authentication processes, and trust in digital signatures,” the organization stated in a request for action.
“Quantum computers capable of posing such threats are expected to be available within the next 10 to 15 years, though this timeline could accelerate.”
The pan-European police agency established the Quantum-Safe Financial Forum, which stated that it did not think additional regulations were necessary to solve the issue because existing EU law makes it obvious that data protection is needed.
Laptops 1000In addition to Allianz, Santander, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Mastercard, Moody’s, and European banking groups, the conference also includes representatives of the U.S., European, and British central banks.
Unlike traditional binary computing systems, quantum computers use subatomic particles to carry out computations differently and more effectively.
The Forum’s main advice is that financial institutions start researching which cryptographic standards are thought to be secure and which may be susceptible to quantum computing. They should then create a plan to adjust their operations accordingly.
It also cautioned banks and others to take into account the possibility that thieves may already be keeping private information in anticipation of decrypting it later.
Federal agencies are expected to be “quantum-resistant” by 2035, according to the U.S. government.
