In October 2019, Google announced it had achieved “quantum supremacy” in a Forbes article entitled “Quantum Computing Poses An Existential Security Threat, But Not Today.” The Google team had developed a quantum computer that could complete a computation in just over three minutes instead of the 10,000 years it would have taken on a traditional computer.

While large-scale commercial quantum computers today are still probably years away from achieving this landmark quantum benchmark, it’s worth noting that cybercriminals with access to a sufficiently capable quantum computer can harness the technology to crack encryption protecting companies’ data.