LG Uplus to launch commercial post-quantum cryptography service next year

[Photo provided by LG Uplus Corp.]

South Korea’s major mobile carrier LG Uplus will provide a new commercial security service based on quantum-resistant cryptography technology called post-quantum cryptography (PQC) for public and financial institutions next year to help safeguard their essential data.

During a session held on Sunday, the company revealed its commercial launch roadmap for PQC while introducing the new technology and its applications in partnership with Cryptolab, a local startup for encryption and data security solutions.

Most popular public-key algorithms whose security relies on hard mathematical problems such as integer factorization and discrete logarithm problems can be broken within eight hours by a strong quantum computer, which means they are vulnerable to hacking.

But the new PQC-based security system is encrypted based on mathematical problems that are difficult to solve even with today’s quantum computers so that it should be sufficiently secure against both quantum and conventional computers.

Mathematically, it takes 1000 trillion years to calculate the PQC algorithm, and this means it enables an unbreakable password in the world we live in, said Cheon Jung-hee, a Seoul National University professor of mathematical sciences who heads CryptoLab.

The company’s PQC solution is now applied to the medical information system of Eulji University Medical Center and the dedicated data line that connects LG Innotek's Pyeongtaek plant and Busan IDC.

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