PQC Roadmap implementation

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Here’s a practical roadmap to migrate from today’s (RSA/ECC/DSA/DH) to post-quantum cryptography (PQC), plus a transparent cost model.

Roadmap (policy-aligned, vendor-practical)

Phase 0 — Set the rules of the game (Week 0–4)

  • Adopt standards + timelines as your north star:

Phase 1 — Discover & risk-rank (Month 1–3)

  • Run automated crypto inventory (where are RSA/ECC/DSA/DH? which key sizes? cert chains? embedded libs?).

  • Identify long-lived confidentiality data (“harvest-now-decrypt-later” exposure), and map to systems.

  • Use CISA’s migration guidance to structure reporting & ownership. CISA+1U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Phase 2 — Design crypto-agility (Month 2–6)

  • Introduce abstraction layers/keystores so algorithms/keys are swappable without code rewrites.

  • Upgrade PKI (enterprise CA/RA, ACME/automation) to issue PQC (and hybrid) certs.

  • Ensure HSMs/KMS and libraries (OpenSSL/BoringSSL/WolfSSL, JCA, CNG) support Kyber/Dilithium/SPHINCS+ (or hybrid).

Phase 3 — Pilot PQC (Month 3–9)

  • TLS 1.3 hybrid KEX pilots (X25519+Kyber) on internal APIs, then customer-facing edges/CDN/WAF. IETF DatatrackerKeysight

  • Code-signing pipelines move first (CNSA 2.0 priority). U.S. Department of Defense

  • Start PQC-capable certificate issuance in non-prod → canary → prod.

Phase 4 — Scale deployment (Month 6–24)

  • Roll out PQC or hybrid across TLS, VPN, email (S/MIME), mTLS, service mesh, SD-WAN, and device onboarding.

  • Rotate keys/certs; deprecate weak suites; update compliance baselines and runbooks.

  • For OT/IoT, plan gateways/firmware updates or compensating controls.

Phase 5 — Sustain & deprecate (Year 2+)

  • Continuous posture monitoring (crypto bill of materials, drift alerts).

  • Retire hybrids once PQC-only interoperability is mature and mandated (track CNSA 2.0/sector rules). National Security Agency

What to deploy where (quick mapping)

  • Key establishment / TLS KEX: Kyber (ML-KEM); hybrid X25519+Kyber during transition. NIST CSRCIETF Datatracker
  • Signatures (general): Dilithium (ML-DSA) as primary; SPHINCS+ where ultra-conservative needed; Falcon where compact signatures are critical. NIST CSRC
  • Code signing / firmware: Dilithium or Falcon (per vendor/HSM support) aligned to CNSA 2.0. U.S. Department of Defense
  • Symmetric / hashing: Keep AES-256 / SHA-384/512 (length-doubling for quantum margin). (Background: symmetric/hash aren’t fully broken; they need bigger sizes.)

Cost: how to think about it (with a live model)

There’s no single “correct” global price tag—cost scales with asset count, app complexity, supply-chain readiness, and sector (IoT/OT is pricier). To make this concrete, I built a transparent calculator with tweakable assumptions (inventory/tooling, app refactors, PKI/HSM upgrades, training, program overhead).

Baseline (adjustable) assumptions in the model

  • Inventory & discovery: $10 / endpoint (tools + effort).
  • Application refactor: $120k per app/service (design → test → deploy).
  • PKI upgrade: $150k per org.
  • HSM/KMS upgrades: $15k per unit.
  • Training: $1.5k per security/crypto-relevant staffer.
  • Program overhead: 18% (PMO, audits, vendor mgmt, contingency).

Example outputs (included in the file)

Tiers: SMB, Mid-market, Large Enterprise, Hyperscale/Cloud, Critical Infra/OT, with counts per tier.

The illustrative global roll-up using conservative—but broad—counts comes out around $5.0T over a multi-year horizon (this includes millions of SMBs and OT/IoT-heavy operators).

This is not a prediction—it’s a what-if under explicit assumptions you can change in the sheet.

Interpreting the numbers (reality check)

If you narrow scope to the top ~100k orgs and critical systems first, real-world spend could be $300B–$1T over 5–7 years.
The biggest drivers are app refactors (headcount/time), OT/IoT retrofits, and code-signing/PKI modernization—not license fees for the algorithms themselves.

Immediate actions (that save money later)

Inventory now (CISA-aligned) to avoid “unknown unknowns.” CISA
Crypto-agility abstraction (keystores, policy engines) to prevent re-writes.
Move code-signing first (CNSA 2.0 guidance). U.S. Department of Defense
Pilot TLS hybrid on a single customer-facing domain to validate performance & telemetry. IETF DatatrackerKeysight
Vendor pressure-test: require PQC-capable roadmaps in contracts and SLAs (see GSA Buyer’s Guide). buy.gsa.gov

Support this blog

Thank you for your attention!

For questions and/or technical consulting, I am available in the comments section below on the blog, or by email at simedruflorin@automatic-house.ro
Have a nice day, everyone!

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