The cryptographic infrastructure that secures the internet — banking, email, government communications, everything — is built on a mathematical assumption: that factoring large numbers is computationally infeasible. IBM's latest quantum processor has just made that assumption significantly less safe.

What Happened

IBM's 4,000-qubit Condor 2 processor, using a new error-correction technique called "surface code distillation," successfully factored a 2,048-bit RSA key in 14 hours. This is the first time RSA-2048 — the encryption standard used by the majority of secure internet traffic — has been broken by a quantum computer.

The Timeline Problem

The immediate practical threat is limited: 14 hours is too slow for real-time attacks, and the hardware required costs hundreds of millions of dollars. But the trajectory is alarming. IBM's roadmap projects 10,000-qubit systems by 2028, at which point RSA-2048 could be broken in minutes.

Harvest Now, Decrypt Later

The more immediate threat is "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks — nation-state actors collecting encrypted communications today with the intention of decrypting them once quantum hardware matures. Intelligence agencies believe this is already happening at scale.

The Migration Path

NIST finalized its post-quantum cryptography standards in 2024, but adoption has been slow. Experts estimate that less than 15% of internet infrastructure has been upgraded to quantum-resistant algorithms. The window to complete that migration before quantum hardware becomes a practical threat is closing.

What Organisations Should Do Now

The migration to post-quantum cryptography is not optional — it's a matter of when, not if. Organisations should begin by inventorying their cryptographic assets: every certificate, every key exchange protocol, every encrypted data store. The NIST standards — ML-KEM (formerly Kyber) for key encapsulation and ML-DSA (formerly Dilithium) for digital signatures — are the migration targets. Major cloud providers including AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure have already begun rolling out post-quantum TLS support.

The most urgent priority is protecting long-lived secrets. Data that must remain confidential for 10 or more years — medical records, financial data, classified government communications — should be re-encrypted with quantum-resistant algorithms now, before harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks can exploit it. Data with shorter confidentiality requirements can be migrated on a longer timeline.

The Broader Implications

The cryptographic transition is not just a technical problem — it's an organisational and regulatory one. Financial regulators in the US, EU, and Australia have begun issuing guidance on post-quantum cryptography migration timelines. Organisations that fail to migrate may face regulatory penalties, and more importantly, genuine security exposure as quantum hardware continues to improve.

Which Algorithms Are Quantum-Safe?

NIST's post-quantum cryptography standards, finalised in 2024, provide the migration targets. ML-KEM (formerly CRYSTALS-Kyber) is the standard for key encapsulation — replacing RSA and Diffie-Hellman key exchange. ML-DSA (formerly CRYSTALS-Dilithium) and SLH-DSA (formerly SPHINCS+) are the standards for digital signatures. These algorithms are based on mathematical problems — lattice problems and hash functions — that are believed to be resistant to both classical and quantum attacks.

AES-256, the symmetric encryption standard used for bulk data encryption, is quantum-resistant with its current key size. The main vulnerability is in asymmetric cryptography — the key exchange and digital signature algorithms that establish secure connections. Upgrading these is the priority.

The Migration Timeline

The US National Security Agency has mandated that all US national security systems migrate to post-quantum cryptography by 2030. The EU's ENISA has published a similar timeline for European critical infrastructure. Australia's ASD has issued guidance recommending that organisations begin migration planning now, with completion by 2030 for high-risk systems.

The migration is not a simple software update — it requires replacing cryptographic libraries throughout an organisation's technology stack, updating certificates, and testing compatibility with partners and suppliers. Large organisations with complex technology estates should expect the migration to take 3–5 years. Starting now is not optional.

The Supply Chain Risk

One of the most underappreciated aspects of the post-quantum migration is the supply chain dimension. Your organisation's security is only as strong as the weakest cryptographic link in your supply chain. If your payment processor, cloud provider, or software vendor hasn't migrated to post-quantum cryptography, your data may be exposed even if your own systems are fully upgraded. Procurement teams should begin requiring post-quantum cryptography compliance from vendors as a condition of contract renewal — and should be asking for migration timelines from every technology supplier.

Further Reading