On November 18, the White House released a new memorandum on Migrating to Post-Quantum Cryptography. One of the main aspects of the new memo was to give agencies a deadline of May 24, 2023 to submit an inventory of all their active cryptographic systems, with a special emphasis on those containing High Value Assets (HVAs) or within high impact systems. While such an exercise is considered a critical security best practice for any organization, this directive signals the government’s repeated concern regarding the urgency of protecting against quantum threats.
It’s interesting to note that many commentators on the memorandum skimmed over or ignored perhaps one of the most telling aspects of the memo’s concern for urgency where it states that, “agencies must remain cognizant that encrypted data can be recorded now and later decrypted by operators of a future CRQC (cryptanalytically relevant quantum computer).” In other words, quantum isn’t a future threat. It’s a threat now. Sensitive today encrypted today with existing algorithms are currently at risk.
In addition to inventorying their current cryptographic systems, organizations need to take steps now to secure their data that has long-term value. While you transition to NIST’s future post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standards, you can quantum-secure that data today with mathematically proven secure encryption. Based on the breakthrough work of Claude Shannon, Qrypt Quantum Security provides you perfect secrecy with quantum encryption that can’t be broken.
Additionally, the White House memorandum directs agencies to test pre-standardized PQC in production environments to “ensure that PQC will work in practice before NIST” finalizes the standards. The memo also encourages the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and other agencies to work with different vendors to identify candidate PQC testing environments, in particular providers of cloud or software solutions involved in initiating or terminating encrypted traffic. As such a provider, we invite you to work with us to see how Qrypt Quantum Security can help your testing efforts and dramatically bolster the security of your highly sensitive long-term data.
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