To hear some experts tell it, the days of secure online communications and shielded data may be racing to an end known by the ominous name Q-Day.
That’s the moment when super-powerful quantum computers may be capable of breaking today’s encryption protection, giving governments both hostile and friendly access to everyone’s secrets.
Encryption makes data only readable to those with the decipher keys.
In short, Q-Day is when super-powerful computers will be able to crack codes protecting our digital data and communications.
Kevin McDonald, a cybersecurity expert and the chief operating officer at Irvine-based Alvaka, said the Q-Day threat is “actually quite serious” though there is an unanswered question:
“Will we even know when Q-Day is reached by a foreign adversary or better yet by our internal intelligence agencies?” said McDonald.
Many experts say the day could come in 10 to 20 years, though some predictions give a shorter time frame.
Governments of large countries and major corporations are the most likely to develop Q-Day algorithms. He said China, the U.S. and the U.K. are the most likely to get there first.
“It’s the perfect weapon against an enemy’s communications.”
Alvaka, which has been in business for more than 40 years, works with some of the largest law firms and insurance companies in the world on cyber security. It has gained a global reputation for being in the top tier of ransomware rescue.
Code-Cracking, Enigma
Governments and even corporations may also not be eager to share the fact that they can snoop anywhere.
“The likelihood of them admitting that would be like the British admitting that they had broken the Enigma machine during the war,” according to McDonald, referring to an ultra-secret British team that cracked the Germans’ secret coding machine, Enigma. The decryption story, dramatized in the film “The Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, is often credited with hastening the Allied victory in World War II.
“It’s not likely to come out if it happens in the confines of government,” McDonald said. “We may see the results of it without knowing that’s what’s happening for quite some time.”
F-35, Osprey Secrets
McDonald gives the example of Chinese government theft of weapons secrets such as the F-35 Fighter and the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey military transport aircraft as well as military plans and personnel decisions.
“Much of what they steal is encrypted. So they’re just kind of sitting on it, waiting for the day when quantum will allow them to decrypt that data,” he said.
The name Q-Day may have been slow to catch on but the threat is real.
“The Quantum Apocalypse Is Coming. Be Very Afraid,” online magazine Wired said in a March headline.
There is an important caveat: AI.
Some experts say that AI may accelerate the coming of Q-Day.
“In the end, AI is a much greater threat to the cyber world right now, than the potential of Quantum coming,” said McDonald. “We certainly must deal with the Q-Day reality but not at the expense of looking down the road past the hazards already in our immediate path.”
Timing becomes a key question.
“While threats from phishing emails and other kinds of cyberattacks are more of a nuisance with each passing year, there’s a greater worry ahead: quantum computing is universally expected to render our most common data security methods obsolete,” the independent, non-partisan Centre for International Governance Innovation based in Waterloo, Canada, said last fall. “The only question is how soon.”
Alvaka Sees Ransomware Rising
In the meantime, Alvaka is battling another type of security risk: ransomware, where criminals invade computer systems and demand money to restore data, and normal operations and not release sensitive information to the public. Ransomware attacks are often aided by AI technology.
“We’re killing it, in ransomware restoration,” McDonald said, adding that “ransomware is still rampant.”
The company said it’s seen ransomware attacks climb steadily since the fall of last year, and cases surged in the first several weeks of 2025 compared to 2024.
Alvaka and Irvine-based tech distribution giant Ingram Micro in February formed an alliance to keep partners and customers more informed and ready to respond in the aftermath of a ransomware attack.
