Cybersecurity and especially the many shortcomings observed in the digital security of companies, governments and individuals have become a daily concern. Fortunately, advances in quantum physics may soon provide greater peace of mind for everyone through the development of cryptocybersecurity.
Two hard-hitting files made the headlines of The Press this week: that of the explosion of financial fraud, which my colleague Marie-Eve Fournier exposed in detail, and that of the violation of the confidentiality of personal medical records, which my colleague Hugo Joncas documented.
Revelations that remind us of our growing vulnerability in an increasingly digitized world and that demonstrate the importance of finding safe and effective ways to properly defend our data and our privacy.
This is precisely what a young Montreal company has been working on for the past five years, which has been developing cryptocybersecurity solutions generated from the work of Professor Bertrand Reulet, world specialist in quantum noise from the physics department of the University of Sherbrooke.
Sherbrooke was designated last year as the first innovation zone in Quebec, specializing in the field of quantum sciences, because of the expertise developed by the University.
“What is at the heart of cybersecurity is encryption. It is a practice that dates back to antiquity. The man codes his messages so that they cannot be read by a third party. Today it’s become hyper-sophisticated, it takes random numbers that don’t fall under a pattern, but even computer-generated algorithms can be cracked by a quantum computer,” Francis Bellido, CEO of Quantum, told me. emotion.
Thanks to four patents approved in the United States, the young company has developed a quantum generator of random numbers which makes it possible to encrypt in an opaque way the data of a computer.
The device, with a capacity of 2 gigabits per second, is able to produce 2 billion random numbers per second, thus making the data it protects virtually inviolable.
“We are currently at 2 gigabits per second, but we can increase the power up to 100 gigabits per second”, anticipates the president of the young company which has around ten employees including doctoral students and postdocs from the University of Sherbrooke.
The quantum random number generator currently takes the form of a USB key that is inserted into a computer, but it could eventually become a chip. Quantum eMotion intends to market it in cloud mode to avoid significant manufacturing costs.
Health and cryptocurrency
Holder of a doctorate in medical microbiology from the University of Geneva and an MBA from UQAM, Francis Bellido has long worked in the field of financing young innovative companies. He became one of the largest investors in Quantum eMotion and raised $7 million to bring his quantum random number generator to market.
We are targeting the telemedicine market, which will be increasingly used to relieve hospitals and prevent the chronically ill from going there to seek treatment at home instead. Our solution will be used to protect the data of these patients.
Francis Bellido, CEO of Quantum eMotion
His company has teamed up with the Montreal company Grey-Box, which has developed a digital platform for medical therapies and is in discussion with German partners to implement its quantum random number generator in Europe.
This new technology will eventually spread to all sectors of the digital world and will allow even ordinary citizens like us to take advantage of it, but for now it is developing in a niche market.
“We chose telemedicine and also the protection of cryptocurrencies. We have partnered with the ETS to develop a solid cryptowallet to protect digital currencies,” explains the CEO.
“Cryptocurrency holders keep this in their computers and expose themselves to cracking. Last year, more than $4 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen,” he notes.
We also know that blockchain technology forces cryptocurrency operators to cryptograph non-stop, to mine, as we say in cryptojargon, while the use of random numbers generated by quantum technology would reduce 99.5% energy consumption, assesses Francis Bellido.
One thing is certain, the development of quantum physics and the overdrive computing capacity it allows will be at the heart of the next transformations of the digital universe in which we are now condemned to live.
If it allows us to feel safer from fraudsters of all kinds who take advantage of this new environment, we won’t complain. We can even rewrite the very biblical quantum of quantums.