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12/06/2026 9:47 pm
TL;DR: Post-quantum cryptography migration is a multi-year programme that starts with crypto asset inventory and discovery, because organisations cannot plan around RSA, ECC, machine identities, or AI-inherited credentials they cannot see, according to Axiad. The strategic shift is from algorithm swapping to mapping cryptographic trust first, then prioritising exposure and dependency risk.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Axiad: Is Your Domain Ready for the Post-Quantum Era? Check Now Quantify Your Identity Risk in Minutes
By the numbers:
- NIST published its first finalized post-quantum standards in August 2024, including FIPS 203, FIPS 204, and FIPS 205.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams start post-quantum cryptography readiness?
A: Start with a continuous crypto asset inventory that maps certificates, keys, service accounts, workload identities, and the systems that depend on them.
Q: Why do machine identities matter in PQC migration planning?
A: Machine identities matter because they often carry the cryptographic trust that keeps services and applications running.
Q: What breaks when organisations skip crypto asset discovery?
A: What breaks is the ability to prioritise.
Practitioner guidance
- Map cryptographic trust first Inventory certificates, service accounts, API keys, workload credentials, and embedded dependencies before setting any PQC migration timeline.
- Classify identities by lifetime and sensitivity Separate long-lived machine identities from short-lived operational credentials, then rank them by the sensitivity and retention period of the data they protect.
- Track AI-inherited credentials explicitly Document which AI agents inherit credentials from upstream accounts, and trace those credentials back to their creating identity and business owner.
What's in the full article
Axiad's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- A deeper walkthrough of crypto asset discovery across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.
- The specific remediation guidance Axiad Mesh uses to prioritise quantum-vulnerable exposures.
- Examples of how the platform surfaces machine identities, certificates, and inherited AI access paths.
- The article's own explanation of why the vendor frames identity visibility as the first step in PQC readiness.
👉 Read Axiad's analysis of post-quantum readiness and crypto asset inventory →
Crypto asset inventory for PQC readiness: what teams miss?
Explore further
13/06/2026 12:07 am
PQC readiness is an identity visibility problem before it is a cryptography problem. Organisations keep asking which algorithms to replace, but the decisive question is where cryptographic trust resides across certificates, workload identities, service accounts, and AI-inherited credentials. That matters because migration planning fails when the trust fabric is undocumented. The implication is simple: PQC programmes that start with algorithm substitution are already behind.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 80% of identity breaches involved compromised non-human identities such as service accounts and API keys, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, which means most teams cannot prove their cryptographic trust inventory is complete.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How accountable are IAM and security teams for post-quantum readiness?
A: IAM, security architecture, and identity governance teams are jointly accountable for the visibility layer that makes PQC migration possible. If the organisation cannot trace ownership of cryptographic assets, no one can credibly own remediation sequencing, lifecycle changes, or residual risk acceptance. Frameworks such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 support that governance model.
👉 Read our full editorial: Post-quantum readiness starts with crypto asset inventory
