Preventing the Hack Before the Technology

Now this is “thinking ahead” about security. Let’s see if the technology makes it though (personally I have high hopes).

Worrying about malicious software may be premature for a technology so young. The first digital electronic computer, ENIAC, went online in 1946 and the first known attacks against computer systems occurred about two decades later. Yet, in all likelihood, such attacks will become a reality, and that’s reason enough to worry now, said USC’s Lidar.

There is no telling what such an attack might look like. Destroying data or circumventing a calculation on a quantum computer is the easiest course. Attackers could operate a rogue computer on the quantum network or corrupt the communications line, he said.

Because some of the greatest advantages of quantum computing are in the area of security, I suspect that it will be on the forefront of quantum research.