Market survey: Quantum computing and the threat to data security

In the course of advancing digitalisation, people are generating an almost unimaginable amount of data - estimates speak of 33,000 exabytes, which corresponds to 33,000 billion gigabytes. The security of this data and its transmission should not be underestimated.

For centuries, we have been using cryptography, for example to encrypt information or authenticate people, so that we can exchange information with each other securely. In a society permeated with digital structures, we communicate for the most part with virtual, digital information. Previous (asymmetric) encryption systems are based on difficult mathematical problems, such as decomposing a number into a product of prime factors. The aim is to ensure that there is no efficient method for gaining unauthorised access to the information or changing it.

But what happens when technical innovations threaten the security of man-made data? Where conventional supercomputers take years, even centuries, quantum computers solve some of the problems on which modern cryptography is based in a short space of time. Large amounts of data, such as financial transactions, email communication, critical infrastructure or transport systems, become vulnerable. The extent of the quantum-based possibilities and uncertainties does not yet seem foreseeable. For this reason, we have surveyed the market, want to provide information and create awareness.

Together with the German Federal Office for Information Security, we have conducted a Germany-wide market study to determine the level of knowledge about the potential impact of quantum computing on cryptography and the status of migration to quantum-safe alternatives in companies.