Full-scale quantum computing may still be years away - but harvest-now, decrypt-later attacks are already here.

By David Weldon for GARP
Friday, December 19, 2025

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Artificial intelligence is that shiniest of objects, capturing the attention and imaginations not only of investors, governments and business leaders, but also of academicians, social scientists and even some technologists wary of its power to overwhelm regulatory and governance guardrails.

Quantum computing, on a similar exponential track with perceived existential implications, and even seeing breakthroughs by the likes of Google and IBM, isn’t yet generating that level of urgency and alarm. That is going to change if voices like Mauritz Kop are heeded.

“The most immediate risk is not a science fiction Q-Day,” says Kop, the founding director of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT), referring to the anticipated moment when quantum systems are capable of breaking the encryption codes that safeguard modern-day communications and commerce.

“I worry about long-lived assets – financial records, identity data, health and government archives” – which could fall victim to “a lack of crypto-agility and weak vendor oversight,” adds Kop, who also created the Stanford Quantum Incubator and is a senior fellow at Canada’s Centre for International Governance Innovation.

To be sure, security, as critical and challenging as it is, will not be the only item on the quantum governance and oversight agenda.

Kop works at the intersection of quantum, AI, national security, geopolitics, ethics and law, and he regards nation-state HNDL as a present danger.

“Today we are primarily in the ‘governed experimentation’ phase, co-designing pilots in quantum-safe cryptography, optimization, and sensing with partners, and using quantum-inspired methods on classical hardware while the devices mature,” he explains. “Over the next five to 10 years, I expect a gradual shift from proofs of concept to embedded capabilities in risk, trading, logistics and cybersecurity workflows, paired with much more formal governance, certification and benchmarking to keep those deployments trustworthy.”

Some experts worry that the cryptographic underpinnings of cryptocurrencies and blockchains, largely unbreached to date, will be targets of HNDL exploits. A study by app security company ImmuniWeb found millions of user records already to be circulating on the dark web – a “quantum blind spot [that] only magnifies today’s failures. In addition to the 7.8 million user records, 5,700 leaked employee accounts are fueling phishing and fraud, while 45% of [crypto] exchanges lack basic defenses against AI-driven attacks,” the report stated.

“Many large organizations around the globe still seriously underestimate the risks of quantum attacks,” says Ilia Kolochenko, CEO and chief architect of ImmuniWeb, which offers a PQC testing tool. He sees HNDL attacks “already being deployed by both organized cybercrime and nation-state hackers . . . Although powerful quantum computers will quite unlikely become readily available to cyber-threat actors upon their creation, many vendors and organizations are totally unprepared for a rapid migration to post-quantum cryptography. Worse, some devices and business-critical systems simply do not support PQC and shall be physically replaced.”