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Harvest now, decrypt later is already in your threat model

If your data has to stay secret for ten years, the quantum question is not about the future. It is about what is being copied today.

QCT Studio team1 min read

Abstract cover for "Harvest now, decrypt later is already in your threat model"

If your data has to stay secret for ten years, the quantum question is not about the future. It is about what is being copied today.

Why this matters now

Regulators have moved from asking whether firms are aware of the risk to asking what they have done about it. That shift changes the conversation from research to delivery, and delivery needs an inventory, an owner and a date.

  • Inventory first. You cannot migrate what you have not found.
  • Rank by shelf life. Data that must stay secret longest moves first.
  • Prove it continuously. A one-off report goes stale the day after it is filed.

The question is not whether the risk is real, but whether your migration finishes first.

What good looks like

StageOutputOwner
AssessExposure by data classCISO
DiscoverCryptographic inventoryPlatform teams
MigrateHybrid designs in pilotsArchitecture
AssureDrift watch, board reportsRisk

A note on hybrids

Hybrid schemes pair a classical algorithm with a post-quantum one, so the result is at least as strong as the stronger of the two:

shared_secret = KDF(x25519_secret || ml_kem_768_secret)

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  • post-quantum
  • strategy