Encryption breaking technology is now 20x cheaper and CEOs should be very worried

The possibility can no longer be ignored

by · TechRadar

Opinion By Garrison Buss published 1 May 2026

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter

Cryptography works because it is assumed that it is too computationally and economically expensive to be practical. That assumption sits underneath TLS, certificates, signed software, VPN services, and identity systems across enterprise networks.

When that cost drops far enough, the protection stops holding. That is why two recent back-to-back papers from researchers at Google and Caltech on quantum computing matters to security and business leaders everywhere.

Garrison Buss

Co-Founder and executive at QuSecure.

These recent research articles suggest that the resources required to break traditional cryptography used on the internet and with cryptocurrencies may now be materially lower than earlier estimates.

Article continues below

Many conflicting factors still exist: The exact timeline is still uncertain, there is still a large gap between research papers and real-world capability, and further advancements are not guaranteed.

Thus far, however, the trend has only been moving toward increasing acceleration in the capability of quantum computers and the risk that they present to internet security.

Many articles have already been written about these recent announcements, but after spending many years educating organizations and deploying these algorithms in enterprise environments, there are two very salient points I would encourage leaders to pay attention to today.

Issues of practicality

The first is that the question of the practicality of quantum-enabled attacks has largely been settled. Many leaders have now heard of specialized attacks (such as harvest-now-decrypt-later or trust-now-forge-later) that may be enabled by a sufficiently powerful quantum computer, but much skepticism still exists about the ability to actually execute these in practice.

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors