The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, Global Tech Leaders, and Quantum Startups Collaborate to Spearhead and Shape the Future of Encryption
BETHESDA, M.d. – Dec. 19, 2023 – Quantum Xchange, delivering the future of encryption with holistic cryptographic agility, visibility, and management solutions, today announced that it is collaborating with the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) as part of the Migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography Project Consortium. This move is designed to bring awareness to the issues involved in migrating to the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST’s) post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and to develop practices to ease replacing current public-key algorithms with NIST-standardized post-quantum algorithms.
Currently, governments and organizations do not have access to a universally acceptable way to guide existing cryptographic standards, guidelines, regulations, or technologies to meet the requirements of migrating to quantum-resistant cryptography. Implementation of quantum-safe algorithms requires identifying hardware and software modules, libraries, and embedded code currently used in an enterprise to support cryptographic key establishment and management underlying the security of cryptographically protected information and access management processes, as well as provide the source and content integrity of data at rest, in transit, and in use.
“Public-key cryptography is widely used to protect today’s digital information. With the advent of quantum computing and its potential to compromise many of the current cryptographic algorithms, organizations must begin to plan for many of the technological and operational challenges that migration to post-quantum cryptography will present. This project aims to help organizations to achieve exactly this,” said William Newhouse, Security Engineer at NIST NCCoE.
Initially, the project will focus on demonstrating the discovery tools that can provide automation assistance in identifying where and how public-key cryptography is used in various technologies – specifically those employed in data centers, on-premises, or in the cloud and distributed compute, storage, and network infrastructures.
“Being named an official collaborator on the project validates Quantum Xchange’s vision statement: Partners in Preserving Our Digital World,” said Holly Neiweem, CFOO of Quantum Xchange. “We are committed to sharing our knowledge and bringing to market products and services to inventory the use of cryptography throughout the enterprise, mitigate cyber risk, and ease the transition to quantum-safe cryptography.”
This quantum-safe cryptography discovery project will demonstrate tools for discovering quantum-vulnerable cryptographic code or dependencies on such code for several implementation scenarios. In today’s digitally-driven environment, it’s critical to plan how technologies still reliant on public-key algorithms will be replaced to ensure information is safeguarded.
It is critical to begin planning for the replacement of hardware, software, and services that use public-key algorithms now so that the information is protected from future attacks.
Additional information on this consortium can be found at nccoe.nist.gov/crypto-agility-considerations-migrating-post-quantum-cryptographic-algorithms.
About Quantum Xchange
Quantum Xchange protects the world’s data in motion from advances in computing and everyday cybersecurity risks. Its award-winning, cryptographic management platform, Phio Trusted Xchange (TX) and network monitoring and risk assessment tool, CipherInsights empowers organizations to bring existing IT infrastructure and SD-WAN environments into the post-quantum era easily, affordably, and through policy configuration and control. Commercial enterprises, government agencies, and managed connectivity providers can leverage all NIST-approved PQCs, achieve cryptographic clarity, embrace crypto-agility, diversify risk, and implement cryptographic governance with no bumps in the wire, no latency, no new hardware on the critical path. To learn more about future-proofing your data from whatever threat awaits, watch the explainer video and visit QuantumXC.com for the latest company news and events.
About the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence
As part of NIST, the NCCoE is a collaborative hub where industry organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions work together to address businesses’ most pressing cybersecurity issues. This public-private partnership enables collaboration in the creation of practical cybersecurity solutions for specific industries, as well as for broad, cross-sector technology challenges. Through consortia under CRADAs, including technology partners, from Fortune 50 market leaders to smaller companies specializing in information technology and operational technology security, the NCCoE applies standards and best practices to develop modular, and easily adaptable example cybersecurity solutions by using commercially available technologies. The NCCoE documents these example solutions in the NIST Special Publication 1800 series, which maps capabilities to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and details the steps needed for another entity to re-create the example solution. The NCCoE was established in 2012 by NIST in partnership with the State of Maryland and Montgomery County, Maryland. Information is available at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov.
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Media Contacts:
April Burghardt
CMCO at Quantum Xchange
april.burghardt@quantumx.com
