It’s officially the start of summer and halfway through the 2021 calendar year – how’s your quantum fitness routine going?
In January we published the blog post and challenge, New Year’s Resolution for 2021: Pump-Up Your Quantum Literacy and Get Quantum Fit. The goal was to educate cybersecurity professionals and those responsible for securing long-duration data to the looming quantum threat and why action is required today.
Our hope was to help data security professionals determine their baseline understanding of quantum and quantum-safe security solutions in order to kick-start their quantum-readiness journey and become internal evangelists and change agents within their organizations.
As part of this effort, we provided a 2-minute Quantum IQ Quiz. To our surprise, the average score was only 66% — yikes!
Meanwhile 2021 has seen a spat of devastating attacks including SolarWinds, the attack on the Oldsmar Florida’s water treatment plant, and the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline. This has promoted the federal government to get involved with the Biden Administration issuing an Executive Order to improve the nation’s cybersecurity and protect federal government networks.
Recognizing outdated security models and unencrypted data have led to compromises of systems in the public and private sectors, the Executive Order (Section 3.d) gives agencies 180 days to encrypt data in transit, while Section 3.c emphasizes the need to “prioritize identification of the unclassified data considered by the agency to be the most sensitive and under the greatest threat.”
We encourage government agencies, and their partners, to consider and deploy quantum-safe security solutions like Phio TX now to better protect long-duration data and avoid costly network or infrastructure obsolescence. Especially, if you consider the April 2021 report by NIST warning that the PQC standards selection process will take several more years (5-15) before full transition is completed. Meanwhile, your critical systems and data are exposed and at risk to a myriad of attacks – harvesting, brute force, man-in-the-middle, and ransomware.
Ensuring your network architecture and communications are secure from known threats and the risks associated with advances in computing and mathematics can be a complex and daunting task, but the solution doesn’t have to be. Quantum Xchange offers quantum-resistant security solutions that are elegant in their simplicity and can be easily deployed across your crypto infrastructure today.
Get started on your quantum fitness routine today.
Step 1: Flex Your Quantum Literacy Muscle
Take our 2-minute assessment to calculate your knowledge of a post-quantum world and its potential impact on the security of your communications infrastructure and critical data.
Step 2: Attain Stakeholder Buy-In and Budget
Faced with competing priorities, leadership might not understand the severity and immediacy of the quantum security threat or how quantum-safe security measures can be deployed today – instantly and dramatically improving your overall cybersecurity posture and future-proofing your crypto infrastructure for whatever threat awaits. Armed with the right information, TCO/ROI calculations, and real-world use cases you can convince naysayers why quantum deserves immediate attention and investment. Quantum Xchange offers a robust library of materials to help.
Step 3: Take Action
Add a quantum layer to your network — it’s easier and more affordable than you think. Prepare for the post-quantum era by embracing crypto agility and highly scalable solutions like Phio TX that work within your existing encryption environment, support all forms of quantum security (PQC, QRNG, QKD), and is available in a variety of options to meet your budgetary and business requirements.
Don’t put it off for another day – Get Quantum Fit in 2021!
