NSA Is Moving Toward a Quantum-Resilient Future, Reports National Interest

Patrick Shore / The National Interest / July 21

QuSecure is proud to share an article published today in The National Interest. The article covers what steps the NSA has taken toward quantum security, and was written by Patrick Shore, a program manager at QuSecure.

Key points of the article include:

• Advancements in the quantum computing industry has caused alarm in the defense sector, where the Department of Defense’s primary concern is that quantum computers will be able to break modern encryption schemes and access sensitive government data.
• In 2015, the NSA recognized the quantum threat by announcing transition towards quantum-resilient ciphers for data encryption. The NSA’s timeline has since been expedited by President Biden’s signing of a National Security Memorandum which called upon the NSA to identify instances of encryption not in compliance with quantum-resistant algorithms and provide a plan to transition those systems to quantum-resistance. Additionally, NIST put additional pressure on the NSA when it recently completed a yearslong competition to select which PQC algorithms will be chosen as the standard data-encryption algorithms of the future. Read more about NIST’s choice here.
• The NSA originally considered using QKD (quantum key distribution) to achieve quantum resilience, but concluded that QKD is too expensive and not flexible enough. Instead, the NSA has decided to use NIST’s chosen PQC algorithms to achieve quantum resilience.
• Public-private collaboration will be critical to the success of quantum security efforts. The National Cyber Center of Excellence, a government organization, has launched a Post-Quantum Migration Project which brings together academic, industry, and government experts to assess risks and formulate a strategy for quantum resilience. This sort of private-public collaboration helps smooth the transition to PQC.

Read Patrick’s full article on The National Interest here.