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01/07/2026 1:55 am
TL;DR: Quantum computing promises major gains in optimization, simulation, and some security use cases, but it also threatens RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and elliptic curve cryptography while current hardware remains fragile and costly, according to Keyfactor. The practical issue is not distant capability alone, but cryptographic agility and long-lived data exposure today.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Keyfactor: Advantages and Disadvantages of Quantum Computing: What You Need to Know
By the numbers:
- 72% of experts predict a fully fault-tolerant quantum computer will be available by 2035.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams prepare for post-quantum cryptography migration?
A: Start by inventorying every cryptographic dependency, including certificates, signing keys, TLS endpoints, federation flows, and workload identities.
Q: Why do quantum computing risks matter to identity and access management?
A: IAM depends on cryptographic trust for authentication, federation, and secure communication.
Q: What should organisations get wrong less often about quantum computing risk?
A: A common mistake is treating quantum risk as a distant, purely technical issue.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory cryptographic dependencies across identity systems Map every certificate, key, token signing dependency, and federation trust relationship across IAM, PKI, and workload identity so you know which systems rely on vulnerable public-key primitives.
- Build a crypto-agility migration path Define how your organisation will swap algorithms without rewriting dependent applications, and test that path in environments where certificates, tokens, and service identities are tightly coupled.
- Classify data by confidentiality horizon Identify which datasets must remain secret for years, because harvest-now, decrypt-later risk is driven by how long stolen data needs to stay protected rather than by current exploitability alone.
What's in the full article
Keyfactor's full blog covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- The article’s full breakdown of superposition, interference, and why quantum parallelism is not the same as brute-force speed
- The detailed discussion of hardware fragility, cooling constraints, and error correction overhead for different quantum architectures
- The explanation of Shor’s algorithm, harvest now, decrypt later risk, and why post-quantum cryptography is urgent
- The vendor’s longer view on practical migration steps, including how organisations should start preparing for quantum-safe readiness
👉 Read Keyfactor's analysis of quantum computing’s advantages, limits, and cryptographic risk →
Quantum computing and crypto risk: are your controls ready?
Explore further
01/07/2026 2:12 am
Quantum computing turns cryptographic lifecycle management into a board-level identity problem. The article is not just about future decryption power. It is about the fact that certificates, keys, and trust anchors already underpin authentication, federation, and workload access. That means post-quantum planning belongs inside identity governance, not only inside cryptography teams. Practitioners need to treat crypto inventory as an identity control surface, because the trust fabric is the thing at risk.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, which means most identity teams still lack the inventory needed for cryptographic transition planning.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who should own post-quantum readiness in the enterprise?
A: Ownership should sit across security architecture, IAM, PKI, application engineering, and risk governance. The reason is simple: cryptography is embedded in identity flows, not isolated inside a single platform. Without cross-functional ownership, migration stalls at the boundaries between certificates, applications, and operational change management.
👉 Read our full editorial: Quantum computing and cryptography risk are colliding now
