BlackBerry and NXP to defend against Y2Q post-quantum cyber risk

▤ Summary

In recent months, NATO, the White House and NIST have all taken steps to prepare for a ‘Y2Q’ scenario in which quantum computers become weaponised by threat actors and many widely used security methods become useless against next-generation attacks. “As quantum computers continue to advance in development, it’s increasingly important to work to secure today’s systems against these future threats,” said Joppe Bos, Senior Principal Cryptographer at NXP Semiconductors. “Collaborating with BlackBerry strengthens our solution to address the critical need to harden code signing and software update infrastructure against future cryptosystem vulnerabilities.” “In the lead up to Y2K, US business spent upwards of $100 billion to avoid calamity and the issue was simply a matter of adding two digits to the date field. Y2Q, when quantum attacks become possible, is on another level, posing a significant threat to industries selling or operating long-lived assets with updatable software,” said Jim Alfred, VP, BlackBerry Technology Solutions. “NXP shares our vision of mitigating the risk of quantum computing concerns and, thanks to their support for hash-based signatures, together we can provide cybersecurity teams with the tools they need now to prevent their existing security measures from becoming obsolete.”

▦ Linked Companies

BlackBerry Limited

$500M to $1B