The Importance of Simulation in
Quantum Network Evolution

ORDER REPRINTS DOWNLOAD COMMENT DISCUSS SHARE

Today’s telecommunications providers face enormous cybersecurity challenges: from advanced AI-powered attacks to quantum computing threats. These threats are already here in the form of Harvest Now Decrypt Later (HNDL) attacks, where adversaries intercept and store encrypted data now with the intention of decrypting it as more sophisticated technology becomes available.

Telco operators face major threats
now and in the future from HNDL

Encryption and authentication are the pillars of our digital security. Today’s classical encryption (RSA, ECC, Diffie-Hellman) is based on mathematical problems that are increasingly vulnerable to threats from quantum computing, and authentication methods are increasingly vulnerable to AI-powered attacks.

The most timely and urgent issue that quantum networks address is the threat of advanced attacks on our secure network infrastructure. The date for Q Day, the day a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) is capable of breaking public key infrastructure, is continually changing, but it could be anywhere from three to ten years away. Gartner recently estimated that a CRQC could arrive by 2029, and that asymmetric cryptography could be fully broken by 2034. The timeline estimates for Q Day significantly shorten with every milestone in quantum computing hardware and improvements to quantum algorithms, error correction, and Google’s recent work on shrinking the resource requirements for CRQC attacks.

With HNDL attacks, adversaries can harvest and store today’s encrypted communications, often undetected, and later decrypt that information by leveraging a CRQC. There are some security issues specific to telecommunications that make these organizations more vulnerable to HNDL attacks. They are highly regulated with many laws requiring encrypted data to be stored for set amounts of time.

A Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) whitepaper on quantum’s impact on the telecommunications industry noted that “traditional networking equipment (VPNs, routers), OS, custom equipment and applications, [and] legacy equipment” could be at risk. Nokia’s Road to Quantum-Safe Networks whitepaper went into more detail, outlining the types of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography at risk in lower (data link, network layers), upper (transport and application), and telco application layers. They state, “Telecom networks are composed of multiple security domains, ranging from the data plane (carries user data), the control plane (handles network signaling and controls how user data is forwarded), and the management plane (monitors and configures network resources) to the user equipment itself. The recent addition of exposure interfaces to enable network programmability through APIs adds a new attack surface.”

Clearly, telecommunications networks are at risk. They often carry sensitive information for government, finance, and healthcare organizations that must remain secure for decades, making quantum risk mitigation a priority. These could include data such as transaction histories, customer records, and encryption keys. A breach in the not-so-distant future could retroactively expose decades of confidential data.

But how can operators address these issues now?

One size does not fit all

There are several technologies available today that can protect sensitive data from HNDL attacks and the arrival of powerful quantum computers: Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), and Quantum Secure Communication (QSC).

PQC consists of standards for integrating novel math-based algorithms that replace the legacy math-based algorithms that are used in public key encryption. While not provably immune to future attacks, PQC significantly improves upon the quantum-resistant security of legacy algorithms such as RSA. NIST finalized a set of candidate standards in 2024.

QKD leverages quantum physics to establish and distribute shared keys. Using single encoded photons, also known as qubits, QKD creates encryption keys that are more secure against quantum attacks than those generated by classical methods. This is what is referred to as prepare-and-measure QKD: a point-to-point security mechanism that requires trusted relay points to extend the coverage of QKD over longer distances.

QSC is an ultra-secure physics-based methodology that leverages quantum entanglement networks for more advanced key distribution and authentication protocols that are provably immune to quantum attacks.