Western Digital has introduced Ultrastar UltraSMR hard drives that support post-quantum cryptography. This is one of the world's first attempts to provide protection against future quantum attacks at the server drive and data storage infrastructure level. It is not about quantum encryption, but about a new generation of cryptographic algorithms that remain stable even when powerful quantum computers emerge. This is reported by Ixbt.com .
While current protection methods like RSA and ECC are considered reliable for conventional computers, quantum systems could theoretically break them much faster. The new Western Digital drives use the ML-DSA-87 algorithm, approved by the US NIST institute. This lattice-based digital signature algorithm is used to verify the authenticity of the device's firmware and service software.
The company is also using a hybrid scheme that combines the new post-quantum algorithm with classic RSA-3072. This approach allows for maintaining compatibility with existing infrastructure: older systems continue to work with standard cryptography, while new ones gain additional protection against quantum threats. The main goal of the technology is to protect the "chain of trust" responsible for secure firmware booting and cryptographic key storage.
According to Western Digital experts, the main risk in the future will not be the data itself, but the replacement of storage device firmware. If an attacker can inject malicious code at the firmware level, they will have access to all data passing through the drive. The new technology also protects against the "harvest now, decrypt later" scenario, where data is stolen now to be decrypted years later on a quantum computer.
For now, this technology is primarily intended for the corporate sector, data centers, and cloud infrastructure. According to Western Digital, the new hard drives are already being tested by major clients.
Read “Zamin” on Telegram!
