Skip to content
Labs
Sign inRequest a demo

Quantum-safe

Why quantum-safe, and why now

A quantum computer that breaks today’s public-key cryptography does not have to exist yet to hurt you. Traffic recorded now can be decrypted later, so the decision that matters is the key exchange you use today.

Check your exposureTalk to us
Why quantum-safe, in three picturesA Bloch sphere whose state vector precesses: a qubit is a point on that sphere rather than a bit that is secretly zero or one. Beside it, an interference pattern in which amplitudes for wrong answers cancel and one peak survives, the step Shor’s algorithm uses to recover an RSA or elliptic-curve private key. Below, a point lattice with its shortest vector marked: the problem ML-KEM and ML-DSA are built on.superpositioninterferencelattice hardness — ML-KEM · ML-DSA

The threat

Harvest now, decrypt later

RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography protect almost every connection and signature in use today. Shor’s algorithm, run on a large enough quantum computer, recovers their private keys. Nobody needs that machine today to start the attack: they record encrypted traffic now and keep it.

For data that must stay secret for years, such as video evidence, identities, health records and state information, the exposure has already begun. For signatures, the risk is forgery once the machine exists, which matters for anything that must stay provable for a long time.

Harvest now, decrypt later: traffic recorded today is read once the machine existsFour stages run left to right: encrypted traffic is recorded today, stored for years, a large quantum computer recovers the keys, and the data is read.recordedencrypted, todaystoredfor yearskeys recoveredby a quantum computerreadsecrets exposed
  1. An adversary records encrypted traffic now, without breaking anything.
  2. The recording is kept until a large enough quantum computer exists.
  3. Keys from a classical-only exchange are recovered, and the data is read. A hybrid exchange leaves nothing to recover.

Mosca’s inequality

Are you already late?

If the time your data must stay secret (X), plus the time it takes you to migrate (Y), is longer than the time until a cryptographically relevant quantum computer exists (Z), then traffic captured today is already exposed.

Move the sliders to your own numbers. Z is yours to choose, from the forecast your organisation trusts.

Mosca’s inequality: secrecy lifetime plus migration time against a horizon you supplyA time axis in years. A bar marks how long the data must stay secret, a second bar after it marks how long the migration takes, and a dashed vertical line marks the horizon. Three sliders set all three numbers, and the figure shades the period the two bars reach past the line.now40 yearsX — secret for 10 yearsY — 3 to migrateZ — 12 yearsexposed

Already late 10 + 3 years reaches 13, which is 1 year past a horizon of 12. Traffic captured today is exposed for that long.

  1. X: how long this traffic must stay secret. Y: how long your migration takes. Z: the time until a cryptographically relevant quantum computer.
  2. X + Y past Z means traffic captured today is already exposed, and the decision that mattered was taken when the key exchange was chosen.
  3. The arithmetic is shown with its working. Z is yours to supply: a risk table computed from a forecast nobody signed only looks authoritative.

Our answer

Hybrid, post-quantum and agile, from the first release

  • Hybrid key exchange

    X25519 combined with ML-KEM-768 (FIPS 203). Breaking either half alone recovers nothing, so a connection is never weaker than classical.

  • Post-quantum signatures

    ML-DSA-65 (FIPS 204) co-signs with a classical signature, and LMS (RFC 8554) protects long-lived roots.

  • Encryption at rest

    Data keys wrapped by classical and post-quantum algorithms together.

  • Cryptographic inventory

    Know which algorithms, keys and certificates are in use, asset by asset.

  • Crypto agility

    Algorithms chosen by policy, so the next standard is a configuration change.

  • Governed randomness

    Entropy sources registered with evidence and always mixed with the operating system’s generator.

Getting started

Four steps toward quantum safety

  1. Inventory

    Find the cryptography in use across your estate.

  2. Prioritise

    Rank assets by how long their data must stay secret.

  3. Go hybrid

    Move connections to hybrid key exchange first.

  4. Sign for the long term

    Adopt post-quantum signatures for what must stay provable.

Make your estate quantum-safe

QUME and RCC are post-quantum today. QuantumShield brings the same to your own applications.

Talk to usQuantumShield