Post-Quantum Cryptography

Preparing Modern Systems for the Quantum Threat

November 04, 2025

The Quantum-Safe Imperative: Why Engineers Need Post-Quantum Cryptography Now

Quantum computing is no longer experimental fiction. With breakthroughs like Google’s new “Quantum Echoes” algorithm running 13,000× faster than classical supercomputers on its Willow chip, engineers must treat post-quantum cryptography (PQC) as an engineering requirement, not a future upgrade.

Classical cryptographic systems like RSA and ECC underpin TLS handshakes, VPNs, SSH, banking systems, and blockchain wallets. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could break these by solving problems like integer factorization and discrete logarithms exponentially faster. The real threat is “store now, decrypt later”: attackers capture encrypted data today and decrypt it when quantum capabilities mature.

From Strategy to Execution: The Role of PQCA

The Post-Quantum Cryptography Alliance (PQCA), under the Linux Foundation, is building the roadmap for quantum-safe infrastructure. Their goals include:

  • Defining migration pathways for organizations and protocols

  • Building open-source reference implementations of PQC algorithms

  • Creating tools that support crypto-agility and compliance

  • Aligning vendors, academia, and security engineers around standards

The PQCA Technical Advisory Council (TAC) governs project standards, lifecycles, interoperability, and documentation.

GitHub Repositories Engineers Should Explore

Engineers can start experimenting with PQCA today using these open repositories:

  • pq-code-package: High-assurance C and assembly implementations of ML-KEM (Kyber), ML-DSA (Dilithium), and optimized microcontroller variants.

  • cbomkit: A crypto bill-of-materials generator that scans your source code or container images to list cryptographic assets like RSA, ECC, and PQC usage.

  • PQCA GitHub Organization: A growing collection of reference code, documentation, and tooling.

These are production-ready starting points to experiment, benchmark, and integrate hybrid classical plus PQC protocols in CI or staging environments.

Signals from the Field: Quantum Computing Is Accelerating

From Reddit discussions to engineering subforums, urgency is growing. One highly upvoted Reddit comment said:

Google’s quantum system solved in minutes what classical systems would need longer than the age of the universe to compute.

Google’s blog confirmed:

Our Willow quantum chip achieved the first-ever verifiable quantum advantage, performing 13,000× faster than classical machines.

There is also increasing attention on new world records like a 0.000015 percent quantum error rate and Google’s new algorithm breaking performance barriers.

Why This Matters for Engineers

These breakthroughs translate into three core engineering problems:

1. Crypto-Agility

Design systems to allow seamless replacement of cryptographic algorithms. Decouple protocol logic from crypto primitives.

2. Inventory and Visibility

You cannot migrate what you cannot measure. Use tools like cbomkit to audit:

  • TLS configurations

  • API gateways

  • Firmware update mechanisms

  • SSH key distribution

  • Certificate authorities and code-signing systems

3. Hybrid Deployment

Until PQC becomes fully standardized and supported by browsers and hardware, use hybrid models. Example: ECDHE + Kyber for key exchange in TLS.

Practical Roadmap for Engineers

Step 1: Audit your stack

Run cryptographic inventories across repositories and infrastructure. Identify where RSA, ECC, and long-lived keys are used.

Step 2: Benchmark PQC libraries

Clone implementations like ML-KEM or Dilithium. Measure handshake time, CPU cycles, binary size, and RAM usage.

Step 3: Prototype hybrid TLS

Implement a hybrid handshake in a test service. Log metrics like latency impact and certificate size.

Step 4: Prioritize migration targets

Focus on systems handling long-lifetime data: medical records, financial contracts, firmware for IoT devices, and digital identities.

Step 5: Monitor quantum and standards progress

Track NIST PQC standardization, PQCA announcements, and hardware error-rate improvements.

Final Thoughts

Post-quantum cryptography is no longer theoretical. With Google demonstrating verifiable quantum advantage and industry groups like PQCA building usable standards and codebases, engineers must begin real implementation work.

Start small. Test in staging. Build for crypto-agility. Your future systems, users, and data integrity depend on it.