The team utilized a quantum computer to breach these encryption methods.
Chinese researchers have announced that they have cracked algorithms that are frequently used in cryptocurrency and banking, marking a significant advancement in the field of encryption.
The group, under the direction of Shanghai University’s Wang Chao, used a quantum computer to break these encryption techniques.
According to the South China Morning Post, the quantum computer was developed by Canada’s D-Wave Systems, and the attack was carried out using a technique known as quantum annealing.
Researchers Target Various Encryption Algorithms
The researchers’ method, known as quantum annealing, is centered on determining the lowest energy state, allowing for more effective problem-solving.
According to reports, the group focused on encryption algorithms that are essential parts of the Substitution-Permutation Network (SPN) structure, including Present, Gift-64, and Rectangle.
The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), a popular technique for safeguarding cryptocurrency wallets, is based on this structure.
Even though AES-256 is regarded as one of the safest encryption standards out there, this development has sparked worries about how current encryption protocols might be threatened by quantum computing.
The discovery made by the researchers raises the possibility that in the near future, quantum computers could actually endanger the security of encrypted data, including private keys and passwords.
According to Wang’s research paper, quantum annealing optimizes solutions globally, much like artificial intelligence algorithms.
By allowing particles to flow through obstacles, quantum tunneling improves the efficiency of the quantum computer’s solution-finding process in comparison to traditional algorithms that examine every possible path.
Bypassing barriers that traditional computing techniques find difficult to surmount, this could enable the cracking of encryption codes that were previously thought to be indecipherable.
Wang’s team noted that this was the first time that multiple full-scale SPN-structured algorithms had been seriously threatened by a real quantum computer.
This discovery has enormous potential ramifications for sectors that depend on encryption, especially the bitcoin industry.
A quantum computer capable of breaking encryption could enable hackers to access user funds quickly and in large volumes.
The researchers did note that due to various limitations including hardware limitations, environmental factors, and the difficulty of creating an attack that could compromise multiple systems at once, the technology is still not fully capable of carrying out widespread hacks.
Developments to Uncover More Vulnerabilities in Encryption Systems
The researchers think that more vulnerabilities in the encryption systems in use today could be found by future developments, even though the quantum computer attack did not reveal any specific passcodes.
On September 30, the results were published in the Chinese Journal of Computers published by the China Computer Federation.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has put out a solution in response to worries about the possible threat posed by quantum computing.
He proposed that hard forking blockchain networks and forcing users to download new wallet software would reduce the risk.
Buterin highlighted in a post from March that this infrastructure could be created beforehand to safeguard user funds.
Divesh Aggarwal and Gavin Brennen were among the researchers who released a warning in 2017 stating that a quantum computer “could completely break the elliptic curve signature scheme used by Bitcoin as early as 2027, by the most optimistic estimates.”
However, thousands, if not millions, of qubits will probably be required for quantum computers to be able to breach the security of cryptocurrencies. At the moment, the most sophisticated machines have roughly 1000.