By Mackenzie Tatananni

Cloudflare said Monday that it would expand its cloud cybersecurity service to guard against attacks from quantum computers.

The cloud technology company first introduced its post-quantum cryptography service in September 2023. Post-quantum cryptography, or quantum-resistant cryptography, describes the development of systems that can protect data from cyberattacks by quantum computers.

Starting Monday, the company said it would build the service directly into its Zero Trust Network Access solution, a security model that verifies a user's identity before granting access to applications.

The integration will allow organizations to route communications from web browsers to corporate web applications while safeguarding data from attacks, Cloudflare said. The company plans to expand end-to-end support for post-quantum cryptography to all IP protocols by mid-2025.

The development comes weeks after Microsoft and Amazon unveiled their own quantum processors, and just days after D-Wave Quantum claimed to have achieved quantum supremacy, with its Advantage2 processor besting one of the world's most powerful supercomputers in a simulation task.

In December, the National Institute of Standards and Technology urged users to phase out conventional cryptographic algorithms and to adopt post-quantum cryptography by 2030, arguing that the emergent technology was developing more rapidly than expected.

Cryptographic algorithms are mathematical equations that scramble electronic information and make it unreadable. The information can only be deciphered using a string of characters called a cryptographic key.

While the algorithms have been strong enough to defend against cyberattacks for decades, experts anticipate that quantum computing will be able to crack the code in as little as five years, calling for new security measures.

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said the company was working with banks, internet service providers, and governments as they begin the transition to quantum security. "We will continue to make advanced cryptography accessible to everyone, at no cost, in all of our products," Prince added.

Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com

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March 17, 2025 09:00 ET (13:00 GMT)

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