As Cointelegraph reported, the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has recommended standardizing the block and key sizes of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to 256 bits.
NIST said the increase in block size is due to the increase in the number of applications that need to process larger amounts of data, as well as the growth in demand for these data-intensive applications.
Currently, AES uses a block size of 128 bits and key lengths of 128, 192, or 256 bits. Increasing the key length can provide quantum security to the encryption system.
Google's Willow quantum processor has raised concerns that quantum computers could break modern encryption standards. Despite huge increases in processing power, the limitations of quantum computers' design remain.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed a plan to quantum-proof Ethereum through account abstraction in a blog post. He believes that it will take decades for quantum computers to pose a real threat to encryption.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of France have completed a post-quantum cryptography test, testing the use of post-quantum computing to protect the digital signatures of Microsoft Outlook messages.
Blockstream co-founder and CEO Adam Back said that hash-based quantum-resistant schemes may not be used, but post-quantum research will continue to develop before quantum supremacy arrives.