Quantum Computing to Spark ‘Cybersecurity Armageddon,’ IBM Says

Governments and businesses are not prepared for the havoc quantum computers will sow in cybersecurity by the end of the decade, according to an International Business Machines Corp. executive.

“Is quantum going to really create a cybersecurity Armageddon?” Ana Paula Assis, IBM’s general manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa, said on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. “It’s going to.”

Quantum computers, an emerging technology that vastly accelerates processing power by performing calculations in parallel rather than sequentially, will make existing encryption systems obsolete. IBM has developed many of the foundational technologies ...