Quantum Computing Is Coming: Is Your Privacy And Cybersecurity Program Ready?

Following on our recent article about the impact of quantum computing on encryption, we take another dive into the impact that quantum computing will have on the privacy and cybersecurity space. You can read the full analysis here. Among the issues to address in your privacy and cyber preparedness efforts are the impact that quantum will have on data analytics and profiling. Business teams will be able to gather and analyze more information about consumers, and they likely will. Such activities will change the risk profile and legal obligations, especially for organizations that do not currently hold great volumes of information. Other risks include the reidentification of deidentified data and the potential that threat actors are amassing vast datasets of stolen, encrypted data. With the hopes to reidentify it in the future.

What steps can you take right now? What should you add to your compliance roadmap? Here are just a few ideas:

• If you have not already, add risk assessments to your toolkit. These can help surface potential risk areas and might be more manageable than full data maps. That said, data maps are important as well!
• Get stakeholder involvement and engagement early, so they help own the solution. Organizational change theories suggest this can make the difference between successful and unsuccessful compliance programs.
• Flex your company’s oversight muscle. Think about what processes might be impacted by quantum computing power, and how you are currently engaging in oversight. As those processes change, the oversight will already be baked in.
• Use the power of “premortems” to identify your riskiest datasets. What information, if stolen, lost, or otherwise compromised, would have the largest impact on the company. Start your solution development with these in mind.

For more, read the full article and check out this post in our sister blog, Eye on Privacy.