Risk Analysis of quantum computer attacks on digital signatures

                               
                                                                                                                               

Digital signatures are ubiquitous in electron transactions as a means to securely associate a digitally recorded document to a signer. They are thought to be secure against attacks by even large supercomputers, but as shown by Peter Shor, a quantum computer could compromise these signatures. Quantum computers are now small devices but are expected to grown in size, speed, and accuracy over the coming years. Shown is the predicted time, as a function of development year, to break the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorith using Shor’s discrete log algorithm. The left curve is based on a optimistic predication of technological development of quantum computers and a pessimistic prediction is on the right.