(November 12, 2024) The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released an initial public draft report on transitioning to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standards. This report describes NIST’s expected approach to transitioning from quantum-vulnerable cryptographic algorithms to post-quantum digital signature algorithms and key-establishment schemes. It identifies existing quantum-vulnerable cryptographic standards and the current quantum-resistant standards that will be used in the migration. The report also provides dates for the deprecating and disallowing of several algorithms currently used for digital signatures and key establishment. This report should inform the efforts and timelines of federal agencies, industry, and standards organizations for migrating information technology products, services, and infrastructure to PQC.
Comments received on this draft by January 10th, 2025 will be used to revise this transition plan and feed into other algorithm- and application-specific guidance for the transition to PQC. Comments should be emailed to pqc-transition@nist.gov.
View the NIST announcement and access the report at https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/ir/8547/ipd