But what is quantum security exactly? Pam Cawthorn, the Dell Services Innovation Lead for Security, explains that quantum security makes it possible to know if a hacker is about to strike even before they actually do anything. "This is possible because of the phenomenon in quantum mechanics known as wave function collapse," Cawthorn told IT PRO, "where the mere observation of an experiment impacts the outcome". So if a hacker begins to observe data traversing the fibre channel "the observation changes the state of the qubits and the data" Cawthorn continues "this intrusion will cause data transmission to stop immediately so that no more information can be seen by the hacker".
I am not a physicist, but my understanding is that in quantum terms when you measure an 'observable' within any system then that system undergoes this wave function collapse. So quantum cryptography is based around this, relying upon what is known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which states, in layman's terms, that you cannot observe something without changing that which you are observing.
