Friday, Sep 11, 2026 The claims desk. Receipts included. POWERED BY LENZ ↗
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Quantum computers mainly threaten RSA and ECC, while AES-256 remains secure.

The Claim

Quantum computers are capable of breaking all currently used encryption algorithms.

Verified by Lenz ·

The Short Version

This claim is false. Quantum computers pose a recognized future threat to certain public-key encryption systems (like RSA and ECC) via Shor's algorithm, but they cannot break "all" currently used encryption. Symmetric algorithms like AES-256 are only marginally weakened by Grover's algorithm and remain secure with appropriate key sizes. Moreover, no quantum computer today has the fault-tolerant hardware needed to break even real-world RSA-2048. NIST itself describes this as a future risk to "many" systems — not a present capability against all encryption.

Caveats

  • The claim uses the universal quantifier 'all,' but symmetric encryption (e.g., AES-256) is not broken by known quantum algorithms — Grover's algorithm only provides a quadratic speedup, manageable by increasing key sizes.
  • Reported quantum 'breaks' of RSA involve trivially small instances (e.g., 22-bit integers on D-Wave annealing systems), not real-world RSA-2048, and D-Wave systems cannot run Shor's algorithm.
  • No fault-tolerant, error-corrected quantum computer capable of breaking deployed encryption at real-world key sizes currently exists; the threat remains future-oriented.

The Receipts

  1. Post-quantum cryptography | NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology

    NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology

  2. Post-Quantum Cryptography | CSRC - NIST Computer Security Resource Center

    NIST Computer Security Resource Center

  3. Post-quantum cryptography | NIST

    NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology

  4. IBM Quantum Computing

    IBM Quantum

  5. Breaking RSA encryption just got 20x easier for quantum computers - CSO Online

    CSO Online

  6. Toward a code-breaking quantum computer | MIT News

    MIT News

  7. Chinese Researchers Reportedly Crack Encryption With Quantum Computer - PCMag

    PCMag

  8. "Q-Day": When Will Quantum Computers Break Encryption? - TCG

    TCG

  9. Quantum Computing Will Redefine Encryption - J.P. Morgan

    J.P. Morgan

  10. Chinese researchers break RSA encryption with a quantum computer

    CSO Online

+ 5 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

Encryption algorithmsQuantum computers