A new era of unimaginably fast quantum computers is only a few years away, with machines set to completely transform the way we solve problems, communicate and compute. However, in the immortal worlds of Voltaire and Spiderman, 'with great power comes great responsibility', and many computing experts fear functional quantum computers could also effectively break even the strongest encryption we have today, and with it, the internet as we know it.

But are those fears unfounded? Ian Farquhar, director, Worldwide Security Architecture Team at Gigamon, says information and communications security aren't about absolutes of yes or no, but about risk. “The risk here is that at some point in the future, possibly secretly and without any public disclosure, organisations may be able to build quantum computers that can practically break crypto systems, which classical computers can't. That is what has people concerned, and that is how it could impact current algorithms.”