American technology company Apple has updated its iMessage messaging service to protect against future encryption-breaking technologies using quantum computers. This has been officially reported blog companies.
Although fully functional quantum computing systems do not yet exist, they are expected to emerge in the coming years. Quantum technologies will make it possible to pick the keys to the strongest existing passwords, which would take hundreds of thousands or even millions of years to crack with traditional supercomputers.
Apple announced that they have adopted a new security protocol known as PQ3. It uses an unnecessary set of technical security measures and also prevents sensitive data from being intercepted and stored. This attack scenario is known as “collect now, decrypt later” and is designed to allow techniques that can break cryptographic security.
“We didn’t just replace an existing algorithm with a new one, we rebuilt the iMessage encryption protocol from scratch. It will completely replace the current protocol in all supported conversations this year,” Apple said in a blog post published Wednesday.
The iPhone maker also said that its encryption algorithms are state-of-the-art and that there is no evidence of successful attacks against them.
Formerly American technology company IBM warnedQuantum computers will be able to overcome current protections for digital data.