Much of the world’s digital data is currently protected by public key cryptography, an encryption method that relies on a code based partly in factoring large numbers. Now computer scientists at MIT and the University of Innsbruck say they've assembled the first five quantum bits (qubits) of a quantum computer that could someday factor any number, and thereby crack the security of traditional encryption schemes. But their amazing mathematical skills may also create grave security risks for data that has long been safely guarded by the premise that certain math problems are simply too complex for computers to solve. Quantum computers are often heralded as the future of smarter searching and lightning fast performance.