The RSA-2048 encryption standard can be compromised in as little as nine days. This was revealed in a study by Q-CTRL published on April 7th. The study details that 381,000 physical qubits and an experimentally verified hardware architecture are enough to compromise the security of the current Internet.
The study also presents two alternative scenarios for breaking RSA security.
The first is to add specific accelerator components as part of the algorithm. The time is reduced to “4.9 days” but more qubits are required: 439,000. In the second, assuming a type of connection between qubits that has not yet been experimentally demonstrated, the requirement drops to “190,000 qubits,” although the computation takes “less than 10 days.”
Q-CTRL Scientists They specified the complete hardware needed: How to configure qubits, manage errors, route operations, and use your own compiler to tune everything.
The Q-CTRL results were based on the following architecture: Each qubit (quantum processing device) can only interact with its neighbors.like the squares on a chess board. This imposes restrictions on how operations can be performed and increases the time and resources required compared to an ideal architecture in which any qubit could communicate with any other qubit.
Additionally, a heterogeneous architecture was introduced in this study. Instead of using a single type of qubit for all tasks, different types of qubits and error-correcting codes were combined, depending on the specific functionality of each component. Some qubits act as processors and others act as memory.
According to the report, its areas of expertise include: We were able to reduce qubit requirements by up to 138x Regarding architectures where all qubits are equal and do the same thing.
Alex Pruden, CEO of Project Eleven, says this approach: More specific than previous estimates like Googledepends on favorable assumptions about the hardware.
Additionally, as reported by CriptoNoticias, Iceberg Quantum released more aggressive estimates in February. 100,000 cubits to break RSA-204810 times less than previously predicted. The Q-CTRL study does not contradict that number, but complements it with a more thorough and verifiable methodology.
Why is the RSA standard important? Will it impact Bitcoin?
RSA-2048 is the next encryption standard. Secures most communications on the Internet. From bank connections, websites with HTTPS, digital signatures to electronic passports. Destroying this with quantum computers means putting much of the world’s digital infrastructure at risk.
Although RSA-2048 is not a system to secure Bitcoin, it is an advancement in RSA factorization as the network created by Satoshi Nakamoto uses elliptic curve cryptography (specifically ECDSA) to protect the digital signatures of transactions. These are indicators of overall progress in quantum hardware.
The ECDSA algorithm is also considered vulnerable to potential quantum attacks, with companies like Google, Cloudflare, and Grayscale, among others, estimating that moment could arrive as early as 2029, although other experts put this theoretical danger 10 to 20 years away.
Therefore, advances on both the RSA and elliptic curve fronts are in the same direction. Quantum hardware appears to be on the horizon, requiring significant changes to the cryptographic protections that protect our current security.
(Tag Translation) Bitcoin (BTC)
