With $5.6 million in fresh funding, ID Quantique is looking to develop an encryption platform that even the National Security Agency may not be able break.
The Geneva, Switzerland-based company just scored the latest found of capital from QWave Capital, a VC firm looking to invest in sci-tech companies focused on physics and material science. ID Quantique will use the funds to bolster its sales and marketing teams as it looks to meet the spike in demand for long-term highly secure data protection and increase its global reach.
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The company is hoping to improve the current security tactic -- one that protects data through encrypted keys created by an algorithm -- by utilizing its quantum encryption tool called Quantum Key Distribution (QKD).
Instead of just depending on keys that are supposedly being cracked by the NSA, its technology will add an additional layer: light. If a third-party attempts to spy on this data, an alert will occur, acknowledging that the light ray, or sensitive photons, have been disturbed. A business or person will know immediately and can act on this disruption by halting communication. And this could help stop the NSA from it intervening on sensitive data occurring between two parties.
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In the whole hoopla about NSA tapping into our information through tech companies like Google, it is still unknown how much cooperation the tech companies gave the NSA when requesting user information. That said, it has been reported that in some cases the NSA has been able to weaken a cryptography formula issued years ago by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Therefore, allowing it to circumvent encryption tools and participate in eavesdropping of U.S. citizens. ID Quantique is taking steps to halt this on our soil.
The funding news came on the heels of ID Quantique announcing last week it had teamed up with Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle for the first QKD network in the U.S., connecting the non-profit R&D organization's headquarters with its satellite office in Dublin, Ohio. The secure line with quantum servers allows for transmission of data without being concerned about outside observers spying.