TL;DR: Post-quantum encryption is still mostly in assessment and pilot stages, according to Fortanix, even as NIST-selected algorithms and store-now-decrypt-later risk push long-term confidentiality onto the agenda. Crypto inventory, data longevity classification, and hybrid approaches are now the practical bridge to cryptographic agility.
At a glance
What this is: NHI Mgmt Group's analysis, drawing on Fortanix's blog post: Post-quantum encryption is not yet widely adopted, with most organisations still assessing or piloting while standards and migration pressure increase.
Why it matters: IAM and security teams need to treat cryptographic agility as an identity and access issue because certificates, signatures, tokens, and machine trust will all be affected by quantum-safe migration.
Context
Post-quantum cryptography is the shift from current public-key algorithms such as RSA and ECC to quantum-resistant alternatives that should survive future quantum attacks. The governance problem is not only algorithm choice, but how organisations inventory where those algorithms are embedded across applications, cloud systems, devices, and third-party dependencies.
The article’s core finding is that adoption is still early even though the risk window is opening now. That matters for identity and access because certificates, signing, token trust, and workload authentication all depend on cryptographic lifecycles that take far longer to replace than most teams expect.
Key questions
Q: How should security teams start a post-quantum migration program?
A: Start by inventorying where cryptography is actually used, then measure external exposure first. Public domains, certificates, SSH keys, and service accounts should be mapped to owners and replacement paths before standards deadlines force a rushed program. A quick scan is useful, but the real work is governance, sequencing, and lifecycle control.
Q: Why does post-quantum cryptography create risk even before quantum computers are practical?
A: Because adversaries can harvest encrypted data now and decrypt it later if future quantum capability becomes available. That means confidentiality risk is tied to how long data must stay secret, not just to current break-in probability. Long-retention archives, regulated records, and recovery data carry the most exposure.
Q: How do organisations know if they are ready for post-quantum migration?
A: They are ready when they can identify every place a classic algorithm is in use, change it without major downtime, and prove ownership for each trust domain. If the team cannot answer which systems depend on which certificates or keys, readiness is not there yet.
Q: What is the difference between hybrid PKI and a full post-quantum migration?
A: Hybrid PKI is a transition model that issues certificates using both legacy cryptography and post-quantum algorithms so older and newer systems can operate together. A full post-quantum migration removes RSA and ECC altogether and relies only on quantum-safe cryptography. The hybrid approach is useful when assets cannot be upgraded at the same time.
Technical breakdown
Why crypto inventory comes before algorithm migration
A post-quantum programme fails if teams start with standards selection instead of inventory. Cryptography is usually distributed across application code, PKI, HSMs, cloud services, embedded devices, and vendor-managed dependencies, so the first task is to find every place RSA, ECC, signatures, and key exchange are in use. Without that map, migration becomes a series of isolated fixes that create compatibility gaps and blind spots. For IAM teams, this is especially relevant where certificates, federation, and workload trust are built into identity flows. Read Post-Quantum Readiness for Identity and PKI.
Practical implication: Create a cryptographic inventory before choosing migration paths so identity, PKI, and platform owners are working from the same dependency map.
Why hybrid cryptography is the main transition pattern
Hybrid cryptography combines classical and post-quantum algorithms so systems can maintain compatibility while gaining quantum resistance. This is not a final-state architecture, but a transition control for environments that cannot replace every trust path at once. The trade-off is operational complexity: larger keys, changed performance profiles, and more testing across latency-sensitive services. For identity programmes, hybrid models are most relevant where certificates, signed tokens, and federated trust chains must remain interoperable during the migration window. See the Machine Identity, PKI and Certificate Lifecycle Guide.
Practical implication: Use hybrid modes where continuity matters, but require performance and interoperability testing before extending them into production trust chains.
What store-now-decrypt-later changes about data classification
Store-now-decrypt-later is the threat model that makes long-term confidentiality a present concern. Adversaries can capture encrypted data today and wait for future quantum capability to break it later, which means the value of protection depends on how long the data must remain secret. That changes classification from simple sensitivity scoring to lifespan-based risk. Identity records, signing material, and regulated customer data all become more urgent when their confidentiality horizon extends beyond the expected life of current algorithms.
Practical implication: Classify data by confidentiality lifespan, then prioritise the systems that protect the longest-lived secrets first.
Threat narrative
Attacker objective: The attacker wants to preserve encrypted material now and turn it into readable or forgeable data once quantum capability or quantum-assisted tooling matures.
- Entry occurs through interception or retention of encrypted data that is still secure under today’s algorithms but valuable later.
- Credential or data protection is weakened when long-lived trust material depends on RSA or ECC and no quantum-safe path exists.
- Impact arrives when stolen historical data, signed artefacts, or archived secrets can be decrypted or falsified after cryptographic migration lag catches up.
Breaches seen in the wild
- Gemini CLI prompt injection flaw 2025: Tracebit showed a poisoned README could make Gemini CLI run hidden commands and exfiltrate developer secrets; Google fixed it in 0.1.14.
Read and download The State of NHI & AI Agent Breach Report 2026, covering 200+ breaches impacting Non-Human Identities including AI Agents.
NHI Mgmt Group analysis
Crypto agility is now an identity governance requirement, not a pure cryptography task. Certificates, signatures, and token trust are identity controls as much as they are mathematical ones. Once migration touches federation, PKI, workload identity, and lifecycle governance, the programme stops being a back-end crypto refresh and becomes an access-trust redesign. Teams that treat it as a specialist cryptography project will miss the operational dependencies that keep identities working during transition.
Post-quantum readiness exposes the hidden age of machine trust. Many programmes assume cryptographic trust can be refreshed in parallel with ordinary change cycles, but identity infrastructure often has a much longer replacement horizon. That makes certificate lifetimes, signing dependencies, and embedded trust anchors part of the risk picture machine identity and certificate lifecycle. The practical conclusion is simple: if you cannot inventory and age trust material, you cannot migrate it safely.
Long-term confidentiality is the real business driver behind quantum-safe migration. The article is right to centre store-now-decrypt-later, because the most exposed data is not always the most sensitive today, but the most durable over time. That shifts prioritisation toward regulated records, identity archives, and signed artefacts that must remain trustworthy for years. Organisations should treat retention horizon as a security variable, not just a records-management detail.
The market is moving from awareness to operational sequencing. Standards are still maturing, but waiting for perfect certainty is itself a governance decision with exposure attached. What matters now is whether teams can sequence inventory, testing, hybrid transition, and vendor dependency review without breaking active identity flows. Practitioners should plan for a phased migration model rather than a single cutover event.
What this signals
Quantum-safe migration should be treated as a trust-lifecycle programme. The practical work is not choosing a new algorithm in isolation, but aligning certificate lifetimes, signing flows, and authentication dependencies so they can move together. That makes post-quantum identity readiness a governance issue for identity teams, not just a cryptography roadmap.
Long-lived secrets are where quantum risk becomes operational. The systems most worth prioritising are the ones whose trust material outlives the current algorithm era, especially identities, archives, and signed records. Organisations that cannot yet inventory those dependencies will struggle to sequence change before external pressure forces it.
Hybrid migration buys time, but only if it is measured and temporary. A dual-algorithm path can reduce disruption, but it also adds complexity and can mask the fact that legacy trust still remains in production. Teams should use the transition window to prove compatibility and remove ambiguity from ownership.
For practitioners
- Build a complete cryptographic inventory Map every use of RSA, ECC, signatures, key exchange, certificates, and token trust across applications, cloud services, devices, and third parties. Read Post-Quantum Readiness for Identity and PKI.
- Classify data by confidentiality lifespan Prioritise records, identity artefacts, and regulated datasets that must remain secret for years or decades, not just months.
- Test hybrid cryptographic paths in non-production first Measure compatibility, latency, and key size effects before extending post-quantum algorithms into production trust chains and federation flows.
- Review certificate and PKI dependencies together Align PKI owners, IAM teams, and platform engineers so certificate renewal, signing, and authentication changes are planned as one programme.
- Track standards and regulator guidance continuously Keep NIST, ENISA, and internal policy updates in the migration backlog so the programme can adjust before mandates force rushed change.
Key takeaways
- Post-quantum migration is still early, but the risk is already real for data and identity trust that must remain confidential over a long horizon.
- The main bottleneck is not algorithm choice alone, but discovering every place cryptography underpins certificates, signatures, tokens, and federation.
- Teams that inventory first, classify data by retention horizon, and test hybrid paths will be better placed to migrate without breaking trust flows.
Related NHI Mgmt Group resources: Post-Quantum Readiness for Identity and PKI · Machine Identity, PKI and Certificate Lifecycle Guide · Encryption Guide · Post-Quantum Cryptography Migration Guide
Standards & Framework Alignment
This section maps relevant standards and security frameworks to the operational risks and controls described in this guidance.
OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 addresses the attack and risk surface, while NIST SP 800-57, NIST CSF 2.0 and NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 set the governance and control requirements practitioners need to meet.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| NIST SP 800-57 | Part 1 — Key Management Lifecycle | The article centres on migration of keys, certificates, and trust lifecycles to quantum-safe algorithms. |
| Recommendation — Inventory key lifecycles and plan quantum-safe rotation, replacement, and retirement before migration pressure increases. | ||
| NIST CSF 2.0 | PR.DS-10 — Confidentiality of Data at Rest Is Protected | Long-term confidentiality is the main risk driver behind post-quantum readiness. |
| Recommendation — Protect data with long retention horizons using quantum-safe controls and migration planning. | ||
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 | SC-12 — Cryptographic Key Establishment and Management | PQC migration directly affects how organisations establish and manage cryptographic keys. |
| Recommendation — Use SC-12 to govern key establishment paths that must transition to quantum-resistant methods. | ||
| OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 | NHI-02 — Secret Leakage | Identity, certificate, and token trust material become critical secrets during PQC migration. |
| Recommendation — Treat exposed trust material as a priority and replace it with quantum-safe credentials where needed. | ||
Key terms
- Post-Quantum Cryptography: Cryptographic algorithms designed to remain secure against attacks from sufficiently powerful quantum computers. In practice, PQC is a migration problem as much as an algorithm problem because organisations must replace trust anchors, certificates, and secrets without breaking identity-dependent systems.
- Cryptographic agility: The ability to change cryptographic algorithms, key lengths, or trust models without reworking every application. For machine identities, it reduces the risk that long-lived services will fail when standards shift or when post-quantum migration becomes necessary.
- Store now, decrypt later: An attacker captures encrypted data today with the expectation that future cryptographic advances will make it readable later. This is especially relevant where identity traffic, secrets, or certificates protect information that must remain confidential for years.
- Hybrid Cryptography: Hybrid cryptography uses a classical algorithm and a post-quantum algorithm together in one exchange. The goal is to preserve compatibility and confidence during migration while reducing dependence on any single cryptographic method that may later prove insufficient.
Deepen your knowledge
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Published by the NHIMG editorial team on October 22, 2026.
NHI Mgmt Group, the independent authority on Non-Human Identity, IAM, and Agentic AI security. nhimg.org