In just few weeks National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is going to announce new post-quantum cryptography standards for public key signature and exchange algorithms.  

A lot of experts from all over the world are extremely interested, if new NIST standarts will make a big improvement in the sphere of protection of encrypted data. However, recent successful hacking of one of possible standart signature algorithm, performed by IBM specialist, made many people doubt about the perspectives of the new technology. This incident happened with “Rainbow” signature, which  was hacked in 53 hours, with the help of an ordinary PC. 

On the other hand, some experts believe, that this incident shouldn’t be taken too seriously. For example, Sandbox AQ CEO Jack Hidary believes, that  Rainbow won’t become one of the final standarts. What’s more, if Rainbow won’t be added to the list of these final standarts, the following NIST update will include 6 standarts, including three for signature using the public key and three for key exchange. According to some opinions, the real decryption by quantum computers will be possible  in 10-years term, while analyzing, checking and testing of the standarts is expected to last for only a few years. 

What’s more, distribution of quantum keys in order to support quantum-defended  communication networks is expected.  For example, a few projects in this sphere have been complited recently: Verizon in the U.S.; SK telecom and KT in South Korea and in the U.K. However, it also should be noted, that QKD is not the prior task for majority of the companies, as  upgrading encryption is considered to be the most drastic task to be solved.