A future quantum computing general-purpose algorithm standard selected by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) could be vulnerable to exploitation. Researchers from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute claim to have identified a security vulnerability impacting the quantum safe algorithm known as CRYSTALS-Kyber, which may be vulnerable to a side-channel attack. A side-channel attack is any attack based on extra information gathered because of the fundamental way a computer protocol or algorithm is implemented rather than flaws in the design of the protocol or algorithm itself. In the case of CRYSTALS-Kyber, the miniscule pieces of data that are leaked, as a byproduct of the way the algorithm functions, were collected and observed by researchers leveraging a neural network training method called recursive learning. In this side channel attack, the small data units leaked by the algorithm were analyzed for “small variations in power consumption or electromagnetic radiation to reconstruct what the machine is doing and find clues that would enable access.” Successful exploitation could allow unauthenticated threat actors to access and exfiltrate privileged information. Notably, this attack didn’t crack the algorithm itself and instead exploited a specific practical application implementation of the of the algorithm. Although this came as a surprise to the researchers, they did state that this finding is very beneficial since it is necessary to research these types of attacks prior to quantum computing becoming generally available to the public.