Cryptography & PQC — operationalised.
Crypto-agility before the quantum clock runs out.
Post-quantum readiness aligned to NIST FIPS 203/204/205 and ENISA guidance — ahead of harvest-now-decrypt-later risk.
Cryptographically relevant quantum computers are not here yet, but the data they will decrypt is being harvested today. Long-life confidential data — health records, intellectual property, defence intelligence, financial settlements — is already being captured against the day a quantum machine can break RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography. ENISA, NIST and national agencies are now unanimous: organisations must begin cryptographic discovery and migration planning immediately, even though full migration will take years.
Open Cryptography topic on ENISA- NIST FIPS 203
- ML-KEM — Key Encapsulation Mechanism (Kyber)
- NIST FIPS 204
- ML-DSA — Digital Signature Algorithm (Dilithium)
- NIST FIPS 205
- SLH-DSA — Stateless Hash-Based Signatures (SPHINCS+)
- Standards ratified
- August 2024
- ENISA position
- Begin crypto inventory & agility work now
What this framework covers
Harvest-now-decrypt-later (HNDL) risk
Adversaries capable of long-term traffic capture can store encrypted material today and decrypt it once they have a quantum computer. Any data that must remain confidential beyond the expected arrival of cryptographically relevant quantum computers is already at risk, even though the threat has not yet materialised.
- ›Healthcare records — lifelong sensitivity
- ›Government and defence intelligence — decades of relevance
- ›Trade secrets and pre-patent R&D
- ›Long-life financial contracts and settlement systems
Crypto-agility — the architectural prerequisite
Migration to post-quantum algorithms is not a single cut-over. It requires the ability to swap algorithms, key sizes and protocols across the estate without re-architecting applications each time. Crypto-agility is the design property that makes this possible.
- ›Algorithm-agnostic APIs in application code
- ›Centralised key and certificate management with policy-driven rotation
- ›Protocol upgrades planned in tandem — TLS 1.3, SSH, IPsec, S/MIME
- ›Hybrid modes (classical + PQC) during the transition window
Migration roadmap
We deliver PQC migration as a four-phase programme over 12 to 36 months, prioritised by data lifetime and exposure.
- ›Phase 1 — Crypto inventory: keys, certificates, libraries, HSMs, protocols, third-party dependencies
- ›Phase 2 — Risk prioritisation: HNDL exposure and data-lifetime classification
- ›Phase 3 — Pilot deployment: hybrid TLS, signed software supply chain, code-signing
- ›Phase 4 — Estate-wide rollout with ongoing crypto-agility governance
PQC readiness programme
- Automated cryptographic inventory across applications, infrastructure and supply chain
- HNDL exposure assessment by data class and retention requirement
- Crypto-agility architecture review and remediation roadmap
- Hybrid TLS pilot with measurable performance baselines
- Code-signing and software supply chain migration to ML-DSA
- Board-level reporting on quantum risk posture and migration progress