The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has chosen the first group of encryption tools that are designed to withstand the assault of a future quantum computer, which could potentially crack the security used to protect intellectual property and privacy in the digital systems companies rely on every day such as online banking and email software. The July 5th announcement should serve as a wake-up call to corporates, says Ali El Kaafarani, CEO of UK-based PQShield,a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and one of The Innovator’s 2021 Startups Of The Week. The company contributed a public key encryption algorithm and three digital signature algorithms announced as standards by NIST. When large-scale quantum computers – machines that exploit quantum mechanical phenomena to solve mathematical problems that are difficult or intractable for conventional computers - are built, they will be able to break many of the public-key cryptosystems currently in use. While it is hard to predict when quantum computers will be perfected, once access becomes available all existing public-key algorithms and associated protocols will be vulnerable to criminals, competitors, and other bad actors. “It is critical to begin planning for the replacement of hardware, software, and services that use public-key algorithms now so that the information is protected from future attacks,” says El Kaafarani. | 
