Heartbleed and the recent Target breach have made consumers and businesses alike painfully aware of just how precarious internet security is today.

There is a constant battle being waged between those who want access to our data and those whose job it is to protect it.

And this tug-of-war between encryption and decryption of sensitive information is nothing new.

In fact, it is one of civilization’s oldest battles; the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians struggled to secure communications long before an alphabet was even invented.

We've come a long way since we started with simple substitution ciphers. Today, sophisticated systems like AES and RSA dominate the landscape. These protocols would require billions of years to crack using today's ordinary PCs.

The problem is, we won’t be stuck with today’s computing power forever. In fact, with the advent of a truly quantum computer (or certain types of specially designed hardware), decryption could soon take significantly less time and resources. With organizations like NASA, Google and the NSA buying or building quantum machines, classical crypto systems based on math are no longer invincible -- far from it.

But the good news is that, with these accelerants in the market, it won’t be long until the quantum internet, a type of network that protects data as it travels from point to point using quantum encryption, becomes a reality. But whether a quantum internet will completely eliminate the possibility of data interception according to the laws of physics is a topic of debate.

Below I will demystify some misconceptions that have been swirling around quantum encryption/decryption and the quantum internet more generally, providing you with a realistic understanding of what is and isn’t possible when it comes to data security today and in the future.

1. Quantum encryption is science fiction

Some people believe that quantum encryption technologies like quantum key distribution (QKD) are still just science fiction, in the realm of lightsabers and time travel. But, while some people hear the word "quantum" and turn a deaf ear, others are already turning a profit.

Companies like MagiQ and ID Quantique identified the potential of quantum cryptography back in the early 2000s and have since built successful businesses around it. Clients of these futuristic -- but entirely real -- technologies already include major banks, governments and militaries.

In short: It’s false. Quantum technology -- at least of the cryptographic variety -- is very real today.

2. A good hacker can easily access some of your traffic

It's relatively simple for a hacker to break a physical cable, like an ethernet cord or optical fiber, and extract data from it using cheap tools that are readily available online.

In many cases, doing so will provide access to basic unencrypted data such as certain website passwords, browsing history, protected blog posts and more. It's more challenging to access web-based email and payment information, which is usually encrypted using RSA, but it’s still not impossible. RSA can potentially be broken with specially-designed hardware -- or by a math genius who happens to be really good at factoring.

In short: This is partially true. A good hacker can easily access some of your traffic. A talented mathematician (or an NSA engineer…) can access all of it.

3. It’s impossible to hack data transferred using quantum encryption

The entire basis of quantum cryptography is the physical principle that the state of a quantum object cannot be read without changing its very nature. So any information transmitted in the form of single photons over fiber channels will, in the case of an attempted hack, self-destruct.

The intended recipient will then receive an unintelligible mess, revealing the failed attack. Theoretically, this makes quantum encryption unhackable.

Of course, as with anything, theory and reality are two different things. The first quantum hacker, Vadim Makarov, described in a lecture several approaches to cracking quantum cryptography systems, one of which he successfully completed.

So then quantum encryption is hackable, right? Actually, not quite. In each of Makarov's scenarios, the weakness wasn't in the physics itself, but in the design of the actual equipment. In other words, the real problem was human error. To ensure absolute security, manufacturers must continue to perfect their hardware.

In short: It’s true. Quantum-encrypted information is impossible to hack due to the laws of physics. The only potential weakness comes from human-introduced design flaws.

4. The quantum internet will slow down data transfer

Transmitting information using quantum key distribution requires setting up two separate data flows. The first data flow consists of the encryption keys, the second of the actual message contents. Think of it like a locked box and a key that unlocks it. If the box is to be sent to someone securely, it must be mailed separately from the key.

What this means in the real world is that, to ensure absolute security, encryption keys must transmitted in a quantum state.

As many people have pointed out, quantum transmission can be quite slow sometimes. However, using this “separate mailing” technique (the aforementioned QKD), you won't slow down the transfer of the message contents themselves. Reasonable transmission speeds can also be ensured by the use of a single key to decode many messages.

In short: The quantum internet should not slow down data transfer; this idea is a common misconception.

5. It’s possible to cover the entire planet with a "quantum internet"

Now that we know quantum encryption is secure, why don’t we build a "quantum internet" and send everything that way? Quantum cryptography has one serious drawback: everything works fine over less than 100km distances, but the longer the link, the more difficult it is to secure.

You cannot cover the entire planet with secure data centers, because the more of them you have, the harder it is to be sure they are all secure. There aren’t many solutions for this problem yet, but this problem is being tackled from many angles.

So while the quantum internet is not yet strong enough to blanket the planet, areas like Europe and Japan will soon build massive quantum networks, and other nations will quickly follow suit.

In short: It’s not true yet, but someday in the near future it will be.

As you can see, the quantum internet is likely to provide a solution that will guarantee the security of messages for the foreseeable future.

While we aren't 100 percent of the way there yet, many organizations around the world are hard at work ensuring that we will soon be able to send our messages and rest assured that they are safe and sound according to the laws of physics.