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Category: encryption – Page 14

Finding practical applications for quantum entanglement is a formidable endeavor to say the least, but a group of Chinese researchers overcame some of the fundamental challenges of open-air quantum teleportation by developing a highly accurate laser pointing and tracking system, as reported by Ars Technica. The team was able to teleport a qubit (a standard unit of data in quantum computing) 97 kilometers across a lake using a small set of photons without fiberoptic cables or other intermediaries.

The laser targeting device developed by Juan Yin and his team was necessary to counteract the minute seismic and atmosphere shifts that would otherwise break the link between the two remote locations. While the use of fiberoptic cables solves the point-to-point accuracy problems faced by open-air systems, using the cables to carry entangled photons — which in turn carry the data needed for quantum teleportation — can cause what’s known as “quantum decoherence,” or rather a corruption in the photon’s entanglement data.

In the grand spectrum of scientific achievement, Yin’s research is a small but crucial stepping stone on the path to a global quantum network, allowing for super-fast data transmission with high levels of encryption to take place. Yin and his team think that quantum repeater satellites could be used to build this network, but until scientists figure out a way to give qubits a few more microseconds of staying power, such a network is probably many years off.

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During its ongoing Think 2023 conference, IBM today announced an end-to-end solution to prepare organisations to adopt quantum-safe cryptography. Called Quantum Safe technology, it is a set of tools and capabilities that integrates IBM’s deep security expertise. Quantum-safe cryptography is a technique to identify algorithms that are resistant to attacks by both classical and quantum computers.

Under Quantum Safe technology, IBM is offering three capabilities. First is the Quantum Safe Explorer to locate cryptographic assets, dependencies, and vulnerabilities and aggregate all potential risks in one central location. Next is the Quantum Safe Advisor which allows the creation of a cryptographic inventory to prioritise risks. Lastly, the Quantum Safe Remidiator lets organisations test quantum-safe remediation patterns and deploy quantum-safe solutions.

In addition, the company has also announced IBM Safe Roadmap, which will serve as the guide for industries to adopt quantum technology. IBM Quantum Safe Roadmap is the company’s first blueprint to help companies in dealing with anticipated cryptographic standards and requirements and protect systems from vulnerabilities.

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Intro

In February 2022, Microsoft disabled VBA macros on documents due to their frequent use as a malware distribution method. This move prompted malware authors to seek out new ways to distribute their payloads, resulting in an increase in the use of other infection vectors, such as password-encrypted zip files and ISO files.

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Play ransomware is notable for not only utilizing intermittent encryption to speed up the process, but also for the fact that it’s not operated on a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model. Evidence gathered so far points to Balloonfly carrying out the ransomware attacks as well as developing the malware themselves.

Grixba and VSS Copying Tool are the latest in a long list of proprietary tools such as Exmatter, Exbyte, and PowerShell-based scripts that are used by ransomware actors to establish more control over their operations, while also adding extra layers of complexity to persist in compromised environments and evade detection.

Another technique increasingly adopted by financially-motivated groups is the use of the Go programming language to develop cross-platform malware and resist analysis and reverse engineering efforts.

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Quantum computers have the potential to break common cryptography techniques, search huge datasets and simulate quantum systems in a fraction of the time it would take today’s computers. But before this can happen, engineers need to be able to harness the properties of quantum bits or qubits.

Currently, one of the leading methods for creating qubits in materials involves exploiting the structural atomic defects in diamond. But several researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory believe that if an analogue defect could be engineered into a less expensive material, the cost of manufacturing quantum technologies could be significantly reduced. Using supercomputers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), which is located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), these researchers have identified a possible candidate in aluminum nitride. Their findings were published in Nature Scientific Reports.

“Silicon semiconductors are reaching their physical limits—it’ll probably happen within the next five to 10 years—but if we can implement qubits into semiconductors, we will be able to move beyond silicon,” says Hosung Seo, University of Chicago Postdoctoral Researcher and a first author of the paper.

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Quantum information is a powerful technology for increasing the amount of information that can be processed and communicated securely. Using quantum entanglement to securely distribute a secret quantum state among multiple parties is known as “quantum state sharing.”

An important in and cryptography, sharing works like this (in simple terms): a secret quantum state is divided into n shares and given to n players. The secret state can only be reconstructed if k (where kn/2) players cooperate, while the remaining n-k players cannot access the information. This protocol can also be used for , allowing the reconstruction of the secret state even if some of the information is lost.

In quantum information, there are two types of systems: discrete variable and continuous variable systems. Discrete variable systems are good because they don’t lose information easily, while continuous variable systems are good because the generation and processing of quantum states are deterministic rather than probabilistic, which enables a high degree of precision.

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Researchers have developed a new method for creating realistic 3D holographic projections that are three orders of magnitude better than the current state-of-the-art technology. Previous attempts to improve the resolution of holograms have run into three basic roadblocks. However, this new ultrahigh-density method shows that two of those have now been solved, dramatically improving the overall quality, resolution, and appearance of holographic projections.

“Our new method overcomes two long-existing bottlenecks in current digital holographic techniques — low axial resolution and high interplane crosstalk — that prevent fine depth control of the hologram and thus limit the quality of the 3D display,” said Lei Gong, who led a research team from the University of Science and Technology of China. “Our approach could also improve holography-based optical encryption by allowing more data to be encrypted in the hologram.”

Limitations of Current Methods for Generating Holograms.

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