Google Urges Companies to Prepare for Quantum Computing Cybersecurity

Google Calls on Governments And Industry to Prepare Now For Quantum-Era Cybersecurity

One of the global leaders in quantum computing is urging governments, companies and critical infrastructure operators to accelerate preparations for the quantum computing era, warning that today’s encryption systems could be broken sooner than many expect and outlining the company’s own commitments to post-quantum security.

The call to action comes in a new Google blog post by Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google and Alphabet, and Hartmut Neven, founder and lead of Google Quantum AI. The executives write that quantum computing as both a transformative scientific tool and a looming cybersecurity risk. According to the authors, the same machines expected to drive advances in drug discovery, materials science and energy could also undermine the public-key cryptography that protects financial transactions, private communications and classified data.

“To put that plainly: The encryption currently used to keep your information confidential and secure could easily be broken by a large-scale quantum computer in coming years,” they write.

A Quiet Policy Shift Just Redefined Entire Federal Cybersecurity Landscape

The most consequential cybersecurity shift in federal contracting this year did not originate at the Department of Defense. It came quietly from the General Services Administration, the central buying authority for civilian agencies across the U.S. government.

In late January 2026, GSA updated its IT security procedural guidance in a way that materially raises the bar for how contractors must protect Controlled Unclassified Information. While the update stops short of mandating formal certification, the structure, control expectations and documentation requirements closely resemble the DoD’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. CMMC is the DoD’s framework for measuring and enforcing cybersecurity practices among defense contractors that handle sensitive government information, including Controlled Unclassified Information.

A Quiet Rollout With Explicit Intent

GSA did not preview this shift months in advance, nor did it stage a phased implementation like the DoD did with CMMC. Instead, it updated its internal IT security procedural guidance governing contractor systems that handle CUI, making the new requirements effective immediately for new solicitations and awards, subject to contracting officer discretion.

United Airlines CISO on building resilience when disruption is inevitable

Aviation runs on complex digital systems built for stability, safety, and long lifecycles. That reality creates a unique cybersecurity challenge for airlines, where disruption can quickly become an operational and public trust crisis.

In this Help Net Security interview, Deneen DeFiore, VP and CISO at United Airlines, explains how the company approaches modernization without compromising safety-critical environments, why resilience and continuity matter as much as prevention, and how the airline manages risk across an interconnected ecosystem of vendors, partners, and infrastructure providers. DeFiore also shares how cross-functional collaboration shapes incident response when the stakes include passengers in the air.

Visa Says Cybersecurity Decides Who Wins Digital Commerce

The word “cybersecurity” can imply a defensive, even reactive discipline.

But effective cybersecurity has never truly been either of those things, and as fraud scales faster, attack surfaces sprawl across ecosystems and consumer trust hardens into a competitive moat, treating cybersecurity as merely a protection is in many ways inviting attack for the businesses that do so.

“It is a core business function. I find it hard to think of any business today that isn’t at its core a technology business,” Jeremiah Dewey, head of Cyber Solutions at Visa, said during a conversation for the “Visa Protect Series” hosted by PYMNTS.

When security is relegated to an ancillary role, he argued, companies miss its most important contribution: enabling the business to grow safely and confidently in a digital-first world. In today’s digital economy, cybersecurity is increasingly about enabling trust and turning resilience into competitive advantage.

Why Cybersecurity Is Becoming the Backbone of Modern Global Commerce

Trade today moves much faster than ships carrying goods across borders; it moves at the speed of data. Currently, all deals, cargo, contracts, and payments rely on electronic systems that operate across jurisdictions, time zones, and regimes. As trade flows become increasingly automated, trust rather than efficiency becomes the primary consideration in systems.

Cybersecurity is the infrastructure that allows modern commerce to function. A single breach can disrupt supply chains, freeze payments, expose partners, and discredit the firm. Trust has become a determinant of who trades with whom, deeming security no longer a technical issue. Hence, cybersecurity now forms the backbone on which confidence, continuity, and growth in the global economy rest.

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A single security incident can slow transactions, trigger compliance checks on every transaction, or halt collaboration deals. That is why the global cybersecurity market now has a direct say in how quickly trade relationships can be initiated and scaled.

The Former Head of NSA on the Future of U.S. Cybersecurity

General Paul Nakasone (ret.) has spent a career at the very center of America's most invisible battlefields. He has served as both director of the National Security Agency and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, two roles that sit at the intersection of intelligence, technology, and modern warfare. During his tenure, cyber operations moved from the shadows into daily strategic competition as the United States confronted persistent threats from China, Russia, Iran, and criminal networks operating at a nation state scale.

General Nakasone prioritized a doctrine of persistent engagement, challenging adversaries continuously in cyberspace rather than reacting to incidents after the fact. It was a shift that reshaped how the U.S. thinks about deterrence, escalation, and defense in a digital age. It feels even more important today, as artificial intelligence accelerates decision-making and blurs the