HPE warns businesses to prepare for post-quantum cryptography

HPE Labs is warning businesses that the transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) must begin immediately. Rather than waiting for the arrival of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer, known as ‘Q-Day’, organizations face an urgent need to plan for infrastructure transformation.

A primary immediate threat is the ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ strategy, where attackers steal encrypted sensitive data today to decrypt it once quantum capabilities mature. This poses a significant risk to long-term data such as intellectual property, health records, and industrial secrets.

The technical framework for this transition has become more concrete following NIST’s 2024 finalization of the first complete PQC standards, including ML-KEM for key encapsulation and ML-DSA and SLH-DSA for digital signatures. Because cryptography is deeply integrated into certificates, code signing, device identity, networks, and third-party services, HPE describes the migration as a multi-year infrastructure challenge rather than a simple security update.