‘The fixes are architectural, not bigger pipes’: OpenSSL President on what businesses can expect and how to prepare for a post-quantum internet

Quantum computers pose a significant threat to the internet's security, as they could potentially decrypt much of the encryption that businesses rely on today. While the advent of quantum decryption remains several years away, preparations are already being made to protect against this future reality. This includes introducing regulations and using longer, more robust encryption methods to safeguard against quantum threats.

However, these changes also introduce new challenges for infrastructure providers, such as increased capacity, bandwidth, and latency requirements due to longer digital signatures. OpenSSL, a widely deployed open-source cryptographic library, is developing post-quantum cryptography to help secure businesses and the internet. The President of OpenSSL Corporation, Tim Hudson, spoke about the challenges and recommended strategies for organizations to prepare for a post-quantum internet, such as separating key exchange and signature migrations, focusing on authentication over confidentiality, and leveraging cryptographic abstraction to maintain backwards compatibility.