This wasn’t supposed to happen until three decades into the future.

A team of researchers at Shanghai University in China claims they’ve made significant progress in breaching military-grade encryption with the help of quantum computing, a breakthrough that could make data encryption and passwords useless all the way.

In a study published in the Chinese Journal of Computers, the Shanghai scientists explain that they used a commercially available quantum computer from D-Wave to attack Substitution-Permutation Networks (SPNs) - classical cryptography algorithms integral to encryption systems that protect sensitive sectors such as the military and banking. They focused on two methods based on D-Wave's quantum annealing algorithm, which was employed to challenge the security of these encryption standards.

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SPNs are a core component of widely used encryption systems, including the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which is considered the best encryption available and often referred to as military-grade encryption.

If the findings hold up, they could prompt institutions around the globe to rethink their cybersecurity protocols.

Experts have long cautioned that quantum computers, due to their fundamentally different computational capabilities, may soon be able to break conventional encryption methods but didn’t expect them to break modern cryptography until at least three decades into the future.

The paper claims that this is "the first time that a real quantum computer has posed a real and substantial threat" to full-scale SPN algorithms currently in use. Although the attacks were conducted on shorter encryption keys than typically used in practice, the research indicates a promising step towards potentially cracking these systems in real-world scenarios.

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Notably, the quantum computer used in the study wasn't some specialized, military-protected technology but a commercially available product from D-Wave, a Canadian company. This raises concerns about the accessibility of such tools and the potential they hold for advancing discussions about the need to overhaul encryption standards.

While the results should be approached cautiously, they nonetheless highlight the urgent need to reassess current encryption practices and accelerate the development of future-proof cryptographic standards.

It is unclear who peer-reviewed the paper to confirm these results. 

The experiment’s success – advertised via Beijing’s English-language outlet South China Morning Post – means that China’s ruling Communist Party could be tempted to crack data systems of its foes using quantum computing, targeting primarily its arch-rival, the United States.

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