T Stamp Inc (NASDAQ:IDAI, EURONEXT:AIID), doing business as Trust Stamp, announced on Friday that it has published a White paper on the potential impact of Quantum Computing on legacy biometric systems that highlights the immediate threat posed by “Harvest Now Decrypt Later” (HNDL) strategies.
“Methods currently used to protect communications over the Internet will be secure until quantum computers become a practical reality - experts generally estimate that this is a decade away,” Trust Stamp’s executive advisor on technical capability Dr. Niel Kempson said.
But he noted that a HNDL approach could be used to capture data that could subsequently be decrypted when quantum computers become available, data that would still have significant value a decade or more in the future.
Kempson said that financial institutions and others holding sensitive data should question whether they could be a potential target and whether their current implementation could be vulnerable to a HNDL attack.
“This is especially relevant to biometric systems where biometric data needs protecting carefully for a lifetime - unlike a password, a face or fingerprint cannot easily be reset when compromised,” he said.
He noted that Trust Stamp’s IT2 algorithm is quantum-proof by design.
“If an enterprise or NGO is implementing or reviewing a biometric system today, it should actively look into the HNDL risk,” he said.
“It makes no sense to implement or maintain technology that will probably be unusable within the next decade, implicitly gambling on future solutions with unknown complexity and cost.”
Trust Stamp is a global provider of AI-powered identity services for use in multiple sectors, including banking and finance, and regulatory compliance.