We can all generally agree that encryption is good, and that implementing regularly updated anti-malware software is also good. But the two have never been compatible. The only way that encrypted email traffic can be scanned for malware is to decrypt it before scanning, then recrypt it afterwards before sending it on the rest of its journey to the email server. It’s certainly possible to do so, but it’s tricky and can introduce delay into the equation. So why can’t we just scan the encrypted email traffic for viruses?

As reported in Forbes this week, an IBM researcher has made some progress towards solving that dilemma. Although there is no current commercial implementation of the solution, the researcher, Craig Gentry, has effectively set the wheels in motion. Gentry has solved the problem of fully homomorphic encryption, which allows the anti-malware analysis, as well as other processes, to be performed directly on encrypted data, without having to decrypt it first. No software is currently able to do that, and in reality, it may be several years before it is commercially available–but it’s nonetheless a big breakthrough in security.