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This week a collaborative effort among computer scientists and academics to safeguard data is winning attention and it has quantum computing written all over it.

The Netherlands’ Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), national research institute for mathematics and computer science, had the story: IBM Research developed “quantum-safe algorithms” for securing data. They have done so by working with international partners including CWI and Radboud University in the Netherlands.

IBM and partners share concerns that data protected by current encryption methods may become insecure within the next 10 to 30 years.

Yes, we know that sometimes it feels like they just tack the word quantum on new technology and call it a day like we are all living in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nevertheless, quantum technology is very real and is just as exciting. Our better understanding of the quantum world and handle on the principals will help us improve everything from computing to encryption.

One of the advantages of the quantum revolution is the ability to sense the world in a new way. The general idea is to use the special properties of quantum mechanics to make measurements or produce images that are otherwise impossible.

Much of this work is done with photons. But as far as the electromagnetic spectrum is concerned, the quantum revolution has been a little one-sided. Almost all the advances in quantum computing, cryptography, teleportation, and so on have involved visible or near-visible light.

Cambridge Quantum Computing has a demo of its quantum key security generation at Ironbridgeapi.com.

If you don’t want your email provider, its partners, or even hackers skimming your messages, choose one of these providers, which offer end-to-end encryption and other measures.

[Photo: courtesy of Tutanota].

The potential for quantum computing to crack other countries’ encrypted networks has captured the attention of national governments. Which of the world’s fundamental challenges could be solved by quantum computing?

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Continue reading “How will quantum computing change the world? | The Economist” »

A new malware strain is being distributed by threat actors via exploit kits like Fallout and RIG to hide malicious network traffic with the help of SOCKS5 proxies set up on compromised computers.

The malware, provisionally named SystemBC by the Proofpoint Threat Insight Team researchers who found it, uses secure HTTP connections to encrypt the information sent to command-and-control servers by other strains dropped on the infected machines.

“SystemBC is written in C++ and primarily sets up SOCKS5 proxies on victim computers that can then be used by threat actors to tunnel/hide the malicious traffic associated with other malware,” says Proofpoint.

A new ransomware family targeting Android devices spreads to other victims by sending text messages containing malicious links to the entire contact list found on already infected targets.

The malware dubbed Android/Filecoder. C (FileCoder) by the ESET research team which discovered it is currently targeting devices running Android 5.1 or later.

“Due to narrow targeting and flaws in both execution of the campaign and implementation of its encryption, the impact of this new ransomware is limited,” ESET’s researchers found.

The race is on to create new ways to protect data and communications from the threat posed by super-powerful quantum computers.