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Amidst growing cyberattacks, Apple has taken a brand new initiative to protect its iMessage users with a new post-quantum cryptographic protocol called PQ3.

The announcement came through a blog post where the tech giant said that the use of practical quantum computers has made it possible for hackers to launch even more sophisticated attacks. To protect Apple users from these new-age attacks, a new protocol is being integrated into the app.

In their own words, this new encryption will provide Apple users with Level 3 protection which is better than anything other widely-used messaging apps can provide.

To our knowledge, PQ3 has the strongest security properties of any at-scale messaging protocol in the world.Apple blog

Current algorithms that support end-to-end encryption are based on mathematics. For now, these mathematics problems are easy to do in one direction but its almost impossible in the reverse direction.

We can expect to see PQ3 support rolling out with iOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, iPadOS 17.4, and watchOS from the next month.

However, with the rise of quantum computing, reversing mathematical equations will become fairly simple. And if that happens, then end-to-end encryption will be left vulnerable.

Since most messaging platforms rely on end-to-end encryption to keep their users data safe, millions of users will be exposed to data theft. Hence the need for this new-age post-quantum encryption.

Although quantum computing has a long way to go before it reaches that level, its still a matter of concern because hackers can use the harvest now, and decrypt later (HNDL) technique. Under this, they can steal data, encrypt it now, and decode it later when quantum computing becomes a reality for all.

Apple isnt the only company concerned about the threat of quantum computing on data security. Previously, Amazon, Google, and Cloudflare have also voiced support for quantum-resistant encryption in their tools.

Post-quantum cryptography establishes two-step protection. First, it secures the initial key establishment and then the ongoing conversation. The best part is, that even if the cryptography is somehow compromised, it will automatically and quickly restore it.

This technology also focuses on limiting the number of messages that can be decrypted with one compromised key. So at most, the keys are rotated every 50 messages and at least once a week.

After being out of the news for so long in this AI boom, Apple quickly hit the headlines with a series of new-age technologies it was working on.

One of them is Ask. According to reports available as of now, Ask is going to be a lot like ChatGPT but its purpose would be only to offer tech support, especially based on data available in Apples own tech support databases.

It will self-diagnose your device for problems it might be facing and then offer you solutions for the same.

The chatbot is currently under training under Apples own tech support team. What makes this feature even more interesting is that you can ask up to 5 follow-up questions on the same problem.

We dont know when this tool will come out or what will be the device requirements to use this but we can say for sure that by the end of 2024, Apple will emerge as one of the biggest AI leaders in the industry.

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Apple Brings Post-Quantum Encryption To iMessages - The Tech Report