The clock is ticking on today's encryption. Google just issued a stark warning that malicious actors are already hoarding encrypted data in "store now, decrypt later" attacks, banking on future quantum computers to crack today's security. In a policy brief published today, Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs at Google and Alphabet, announced the company is on track to complete its post-quantum cryptography migration while calling on governments to treat quantum-resistant encryption as critical infrastructure - before it's too late.
Google isn't mincing words: the encryption protecting your bank transfers, private messages, and classified data could be worthless within years. The company's latest policy push, published by Kent Walker, signals a shift from theoretical concern to urgent action on quantum computing security.
The threat is already materializing. While large-scale quantum computers capable of breaking current encryption don't exist yet, sophisticated attackers aren't waiting. They're executing what security experts call "store now, decrypt later" attacks - vacuuming up encrypted data today with plans to unlock it once quantum computers become powerful enough. It's a patient but devastating strategy that puts everything from trade secrets to government communications at risk.
Google's timeline shows the company has been preparing for this moment since 2016, conducting early experiments with post-quantum cryptography long before most enterprises considered it urgent. The company rolled out quantum-resistant algorithms in Chrome and across its product ecosystem, treating what others saw as a distant threat as an immediate engineering challenge. Now, with quantum computing hardware advancing faster than many predicted, that early investment looks prescient.
The technical challenge centers on cryptographically relevant quantum computers - machines powerful enough to break the public-key cryptosystems that secure modern digital infrastructure. Unlike classical computers that process information sequentially, quantum computers can evaluate multiple possibilities simultaneously, giving them unprecedented power to unravel mathematical problems that form the basis of current encryption. According to , the window to transition is narrowing.
