Samsung’s quantum 5G smartphone could be a game-changer in mobile security
At this point in time, pretty much all our smartphones rely on encryption to help protect the data on our phones. Companies have also changed their approach where they have basically handed us our own keys to the encryption, meaning that only we can decrypt it, such as through passwords, PINs, and fingerprint security, much to the annoyance of law enforcement agencies.
Now it seems that Samsung is stepping things up as the company, together with Korean telco SK Telecom, have announced the Samsung Galaxy A Quantum. This is a smartphone that features its very own quantum chip, although for the most part, the handset is essentially a rebranded Galaxy A71 5G, but that’s not really the point.
So what does the addition of a quantum chip do? Quantum computing has a lot of potential, but without diving too much into the technical details (which we find confusing ourselves), a popular application of the technology is for security. This is because quantum computing allows for the generation of truly randomized numbers.
This is versus encryption keys which in theory could eventually be cracked, although it would take a very, very, VERY long time to do so. This means that with these randomly generated numbers, it can better protect users against man-in-the-middle attacks, and can be used for all kinds of services like user identification, mobile banks, online banking, and so on where two-factor authentication is used.
We’re not sure why the quantum chip was put in a mid-range device instead of a higher-end flagship like the Galaxy S20 series, but perhaps it will find its way into future flagship Samsung phones.
Source: PhoneArena