Quantum Internet: The Future of Secure Communication in a Cyber Warfare Era How Quantum Communication Could Protect Governments, Financial Systems and Critical Infrastructure from Future Cyber Attacks

Abstract

As cyber warfare becomes one of the defining features of modern warfare, the security of digital communication networks is now a world wide concern. While today's cyber security systems have evolved considerably over the past few years, they remain prone to more targeted attacks, intercept of communication and breakthroughs in computation. Quantum Internet provides a radical departure from conventional security, with the use of quantum mechanical phenomena such as superposition, entanglement and quantum key distribution (QKD). The primary difference between quantum communication and conventional cryptography is that it's possible to detect an intrusion at the physical level of the network itself, since the transmission of the quantum state cannot be intercepted without destroying its informational content. In this article, we shall discuss the principles of quantum internet, its relevant technologies, and its potential implications for government systems, banks, media and essential infrastructure against cyber-warfare in the current scenario, as well as the increasingly growing importance of quantum security in the digital world and how the developing countries, for example Pakistan face these modern cyber threats, while outlining both the hurdles that must be overcome to implement quantum networking and how hybrid classical-quantum communication could potentially form the future infrastructure of security.