If replicated, such attacks could pose a threat to software that uses RSA or AES encryption.
Chinese scientists at Shanghai University have determined that a quantum computer from the Canadian firm D-Wave can effectively crack a popular encryption method.
Researchers found it can attack Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) encryption, which is used by web browsers, VPNs, email services, and chips from brands like Samsung and LG. It can also target the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which the US government adopted in 2001.
The paper details two technical methods “grounded in the quantum annealing algorithm, using pure quantum algorithm and quantum annealing combined with [a] classical algorithm to implement [an] RSA public key cryptography attack.”
The researchers used a D-Wave Advantage quantum computer to achieve the “first 50-bit RSA integer decomposition”, according to a translation.
