What is post-quantum cryptography?
Post-Quantum Cryptography — algorithms designed to resist attacks from quantum computers.
Written by the SkyQon engineering team · Last verified 4 August 2026
Why it matters
Encrypted traffic captured today can be stored and decrypted once a cryptographically relevant quantum computer exists — the harvest-now-decrypt-later problem. That makes your migration deadline a function of how long your data must stay confidential, not of when the hardware arrives.
The standard
NIST FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA), published August 2024. NIST IR 8547 sets the transition path: RSA and elliptic-curve at 112-bit security deprecated after 2030 and disallowed after 2035.
Official text: NIST FIPS 203
How it fails
The near-term exposure is key exchange, not signatures. A recorded session can be decrypted years later, whereas a certificate signature only has to hold until that certificate expires. Teams routinely plan a certificate-replacement programme first and leave hybrid key exchange — where the actual risk sits — untouched. Either way the prerequisite is an inventory of what you currently have deployed.
Related terms
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