Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense

Cybersecurity leaders frequently stall post-quantum migration projects by demanding complete visibility across thousands of systems before taking action. Drawing clear parallels to early cloud migration hurdles, this episode highlights how inventory paralysis creates unnecessary delays. Experts Antti Ropponen (IBM), Aisling Dawson (ABI Research), Itan Barmes (Qiz Security), and Sarah McCarthy (Citi) outline how to shift focus toward risk-based prioritization, cryptographic posture management (CPM), and actionable operational steps.

What you'll learn:

• Why aiming for a 100% complete cryptographic inventory causes analysis paralysis
• Lessons from cloud migrations that apply directly to post-quantum readiness
• The difference between simple discovery lists and cryptographic posture management (CPM)
• How to categorize threats like harvest-now-decrypt-later versus authentication risks
• Practical steps to build corporate governance and reach cryptographic base camp
• Why upgrading baseline algorithms like AES 256 for data at rest serves as an immediate low hanging fruit victory

Antti Ropponen is Executive Partner, EMEA CyberDefend and Global Quantum Safe Transformation Leader at IBM Consulting. With extensive experience in cybersecurity, cryptography and quantum-safe transformation, Antti works with organisations to navigate cryptographic risk and prepare for the transition to post-quantum security.

Aisling Dawson is a Senior Analyst at ABI Research, where she focuses on cybersecurity and emerging security technologies, including quantum-safe technologies and cryptographic services. Her research explores the evolving security landscape and the practical challenges organisations and technology providers face as new technologies emerge.

Itan Barmes is Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at QIZ Security, where he focuses on cryptography posture management and helping organisations prepare for the transition to a quantum-safe future. He holds a PhD in experimental physics and has extensive expertise across cryptography, quantum security and cybersecurity.

Sarah McCarthy is the Quantum Readiness Program Lead at Citi with a strong background in quantum-safe solutions, in particular for the financial sector. Prior to this, she worked as Cryptographic Strategist at evolutionQ. Throughout her career, she has endeavoured to keep the focus on secure designs with real-world practicality, which continues to be a key influence in her current role.

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

Corporate governance models built 50 years ago were designed for physical assets, not dynamic digital infrastructure. Today, post-quantum cryptography requires board members and executives to rethink operational resilience before legacy encryption breaks.

In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Johannes Lintzen sits down with Will Collison (HSBC), Louise Davey (LDIQ), Kevin Reifsteck (Microsoft), and Sarah McCarthy (Citi). Together, they break down why quantum risk is an urgent executive priority rather than a narrow technology glitch.

What you'll learn

• Why quantum threats invalidate underlying digital trust assumptions rather than single vulnerabilities
• How the timing offset of harvest now, decrypt later breaks standard risk management frameworks
• Practical tactics from Microsoft on inventorying enterprise cryptography without overwhelming teams
• How HSBC leveraged real-world trials to secure C-suite buy-in and align with 2030–2035 global timelines
• The critical distinctions between post-quantum cryptography, quantum key distribution, and quantum computing
• How Citi builds internal champion networks across legal, compliance, and risk teams to drive action

Guest biographies

Will Collison leads cryptography strategy at HSBC. Louise Davey is a cybersecurity advisor specializing in board governance. Kevin Reifsteck drives strategic security initiatives at Microsoft. Sarah McCarthy oversees quantum readiness at Citi.

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

The Cybersecurity Agency of Singapore (CSA) serves as the national coordinator for protecting the digital foundations of the nation. Protecting essential services like telecommunications, finance, and energy requires a transition to quantum-safe cryptography before existing standards become vulnerable. This effort involves coordinating with both public and private stakeholders to ensure the digital economy remains resilient.

Roddy Kok, the technical lead for Quantum Safe at CSA, explains the specific operational hurdles organizations face when replacing pervasive cryptographic components. He outlines the utility of the Quantum Safe Migration Handbook and the Quantum Readiness Index (QRI) as resources for organizations to assess their current posture. The conversation covers the necessity of aligning with international standards to maintain seamless global connectivity and trade.

What You’ll Learn

• Why quantum readiness centers on operational execution rather than theoretical physics.
• The structure of the five core operational domains for migration.
• Specific deadlines for critical information infrastructure owners starting in 2027.
• How the Quantum Readiness Index facilitates communication with senior management.
• The role of crypto agility in managing evolving technology standards.
• Why international interoperability is a requirement for Singapore’s economy.
• The importance of engaging vendors early to understand product roadmaps.
• Steps for identifying cryptographic "crown jewels" within an organization.

Guest bio

Roddy Kok is the lead cybersecurity consultant and technical lead for Quantum Safe at the Cybersecurity Agency of Singapore (CSA). His experience spans defense science, commercial startups, and product certification. He holds a Master’s degree in Cryptography from the University of Waterloo and coordinates Singapore’s strategy for transitioning critical digital infrastructure to quantum-resistant standards.

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

What You’ll Learn

• Why the 2026 deployment mandate for EUDI Wallets creates immediate urgency
• The specific risks of storing biometric and identity data in a quantum environment
• How laboratories help vendors prove their security claims through independent review
• Why back-end systems adapt to new protocols faster than hardware devices
• The role of ENISA and the European Commission in shaping certification schemes
• How the Cyber Resilience Act affects both new and legacy products
• Why crypto agility is the only way to manage overlapping regulatory timelines
• The primary reason most security systems fail during real-world use

Guest bio

Wei Yuan is lab manager and director of operations at Applus+ Laboratories. Working at the boundary of high-assurance evaluation, hardware security, and regulatory policy, he serves as an expert within ENISA working groups, helping shape European digital identity certification standards and transition pathways to post-quantum cryptography.

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

Content
Eric Amador from Thales joins the show to discuss pqctoday.com, an open initiative designed to simplify quantum-safe migration. Discover how browser-based cryptographic tools and AI help organizations understand upcoming global timelines, test new algorithms like ML-KEM without friction, and prepare for the quantum threat.

What you'll learn

• How WebAssembly allows users to test ML-KEM and ML-DSA directly in a browser without complex installations.
• The strategic differences in regional migration timelines between Australia, the United States, and global standards bodies.
• Why modern cryptographic migration requires a focus on long-term governance rather than a simple algorithm swap.
• How AI technology curates specific preparation tracks for developers, DevOps teams, and executives.

Eric Amador, a Product Manager at Thales, recognized that organizations struggle to find clear, actionable details on post-quantum preparation. To address this gap, he launched an open initiative that helps security teams simulate post-quantum protocols instantly. The platform uses AI to summarize complex document updates from IETF volunteers and standard bodies such as NIST. By focusing on education and awareness, the platform helps security leaders build a business case for crypto-agility before engaging with commercial vendors.

Eric Amador brings years of hands-on product experience across multiple industries, guiding technical professionals and executives through cryptographic transitions. He currently manages product strategies at Thales while running open-source initiatives to democratize quantum-safe security tools.

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

India is accelerating its transition to quantum-safe systems to protect its vast digital public infrastructure. The Data Security Council of India has been instrumental in shaping a roadmap that addresses the unique challenges of the Indian ecosystem. High transaction volumes and deeply interconnected systems make organizational security a paramount concern for national stability.

The roadmap defines two distinct tracks for migration based on the criticality of the systems involved. Critical information infrastructure must achieve full migration by the end of 2029, while general enterprises have a slightly longer horizon ending in 2033. These timelines reflect recent scientific updates suggesting that cryptographically relevant quantum computers may arrive sooner than previously anticipated.

Successful migration requires more than just replacing algorithms; it demands a focus on cryptographic agility and sovereign security needs. By aligning with global standards like NIST while maintaining the flexibility for national requirements, India aims to ensure long-term viability in the quantum era. The strategy emphasizes that quantum resiliency is a broad organizational mandate rather than a simple technical update.

What you’ll learn

• The specific milestones for India’s critical information infrastructure transition.

• How India’s digital public infrastructure influences its national quantum strategy.

• The difference between national advisory guidelines and sectoral enforcement.

• Why the 2029 horizon is becoming a global benchmark for quantum readiness.

• The importance of cryptographic agility in modern system design.

• Practical steps for organizations to begin their quantum risk assessments today.

About Teja Chintalapati and Vinayak Godse

Vinayak Godse is the CEO of the Data Security Council of India and has spent nearly three decades building national cybersecurity frameworks. He chaired the committee responsible for devising India’s quantum migration roadmap.

Teja Chintalapati is a senior consultant at DSCI specializing in quantum resiliency and cybersecurity strategy.

Your roadmap to quantum resilience

[02:17] Step 1: Analyze the historical context of India’s quantum focus

Vinayak shares how India’s interest in quantum technology dates back to 2015. He explains the evolution from theoretical research to the creation of a national task force for quantum-safe migration.

Key Question: Does your organization’s history with emerging tech inform your current security strategy?

[10:19] Step 2: Understand the scale of India’s digital public infrastructure

The guests describe the massive volume of digital transactions in India facilitated by systems like UPI and Aadhaar. They discuss how this democratization of digital access necessitates a robust quantum defense.

Key Question: How does the interconnected nature of your digital ecosystem increase your quantum risk?

[23:44] Step 3: Implement aggressive timelines for critical sectors

Teja outlines the specific milestones for critical information infrastructure, aiming for full migration by December 31, 2029. He discusses why these aggressive targets are necessary given the changing geopolitical landscape.

Key Question: Are your internal migration deadlines aligned with the accelerating threat of quantum computing?

[33:08] Step 4: Balance global interoperability with sovereign security

The discussion covers the use of NIST standards alongside the potential for sovereign Indian algorithms. Vinayak emphasizes that cryptographic agility is the primary tool for managing this balance.

Key Question: Is your infrastructure agile enough to adopt new algorithms without system-wide failures?

[41:24] Step 5: Leverage existing best practices for immediate action

The guests advise organizations to start with available global materials and risk assessment frameworks. They highlight that the vendor ecosystem is already shifting to support quantum-safe capabilities.

Key Question: What steps can you take today to evaluate your most critical cryptographic dependencies?

Episode resources

Vinayak Godse on LinkedIn

Teja Chintalapati on LinkedIn

Want exclusive insights on quantum migration? Stay ahead of the curve. Subscribe to Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Podcasts.

✔ Get insider knowledge from leading cybersecurity experts.

✔ Learn practical steps to future-proof your organization.

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Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

The migration to quantum-safe systems is often stalled by a desire for perfect visibility. Antti Ropponen joins host Jo Lintzen to discuss why waiting for a 100% accurate inventory often leads to inaction. Drawing on years of experience in cloud modernization, Antti highlights the similarities between "lifting and shifting" workloads and simply swapping cryptographic algorithms.

The conversation covers the necessity of moving beyond technical silos. Antti shares insights from an IBM study showing that the majority of quantum-safe programs now live outside the CISO office, often residing within CTO or digital transformation departments. He provides a framework for prioritizing migration based on risk, regulation, and business value, while offering practical advice on funding these multi-year programs by integrating them into existing IT refresh cycles.

What You’ll Learn

• Why the 2019 South European bank project served as a lightbulb moment for quantum risk

• How to avoid the trap of "inventory paralysis" during discovery phases

• The dangers of treating quantum migration as a simple "flick of a switch" exercise

• Why post-quantum cryptography programs are moving from the CISO to the CTO office

• Methods for using regulation as a prioritization factor rather than just a checkbox

• Strategies for quantifying risk reduction to build a compelling financial business case

• Nuances in migration priorities between the financial and pharmaceutical sectors

• How to treat quantum-safe transitions as "business as usual" engineering

About Antti Ropponen

Antti Ropponen serves as the Global Quantum Safe Transformation Leader at IBM Consulting. He drives the execution and scaling of quantum-safe programs across EMEA, working directly with CISOs and CTOs to move organizations from theoretical risk toward real-world migration. With a background in cloud migration and security modernization, Antti focuses on the organizational and architectural complexities of large-scale cryptographic transitions.

Your Roadmap to Quantum Transformation

[00:08:19] Step 1: Avoid the Inventory Paralysis Trap

Organizations often stall their progress by trying to achieve a perfect, 100% accurate inventory before taking action. Data quality fluctuates quickly as systems change, making a complete snapshot nearly impossible. Focus instead on risk-based classification to identify where the most critical vulnerabilities live.

Key Question: Are you waiting for a perfect list of assets before starting your mitigation planning?

[00:16:36] Step 2: Adopt Cryptographic Landing Zones

Drawing on cloud migration best practices, organizations should utilize reference architectures and target patterns. Following established templates ensures that necessary security boxes are checked without requiring a deep dive into every individual system component.

Key Question: Can you simplify your transition by applying standardized architectural patterns to your critical trust flows?

[00:21:10] Step 3: Elevate the Program Beyond Technical Silos

Successful migration is an organizational and cultural transformation rather than a localized security project. Because these programs require coordination across hundreds of teams, they often find a more natural home in the CTO office or a digital transformation department where they have broader visibility.

Key Question: Does your quantum-safe program have the organizational authority to influence the backlogs of application and platform teams?

[00:26:19] Step 4: Use Regulation as a Prioritization Factor

Compliance frameworks like GDPR or the Cyber Resilience Act should be treated as tools for making a business case. By integrating regulatory requirements into your risk score, you can prioritize efforts that offer the highest value in terms of both resilience and legal standing.

Key Question: Is regulation driving your roadmap, or is it one factor in a more holistic risk-based strategy?

[00:31:08] Step 5: Embed Migration into Existing Refresh Cycles

Building a business case is easier when you align quantum-safe requirements with existing digital transformation or infrastructure refreshment programs. This approach avoids creating a "net new" legacy and ensures that future projects are quantum-safe by design from day one.

Key Question: Which upcoming IT modernization projects can serve as a vehicle for your post-quantum upgrades?

Episode Resources

• Antti Ropponen on LinkedIn

• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

• PQShield Website

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

Most organizations currently view the arrival of a cryptanalytically relevant quantum computer as a distant technical concern, but Louise Davey argues that it is a present-day governance crisis requiring immediate board-level action. In this episode, she explores how technical practitioners can successfully carry this issue to the top of an organization by moving the conversation away from qubits and toward fiduciary duty and operational resilience. Louise highlights the unique timing offset inherent in the "harvest now, decrypt later" threat, which complicates traditional risk management because the decisions made today affect a security landscape that will manifest long after current leaders have moved on.

The discussion further examines the three primary breakages that quantum computing causes in standard risk models, specifically regarding ownership, remediation, and the foundational assumptions of digital trust. Louise points out that many organizations fail by treating the quantum transition as an IT project. She clarifies that while IT is an essential enabler for execution, the business must own the strategy and accountability to ensure multi-year programs receive the necessary budget and sustained focus. When the strategy lacks business-led ownership, it risks stalling during the long slog of defending the program through various political complexities.

The discussion concludes with actionable advice for boards to move from awareness to execution through expert advisory and rapid risk assessments. Louise explains the incredible power of an inquiring board to shift organizational priorities overnight. By asking the right questions and recording them in meeting minutes, boards can transform a slow-moving technical initiative into a high-priority mandate for organizational resilience.

What you’ll learn

• How to translate technical quantum risks into the language of business.

• Why the timing offset makes quantum risk different from traditional cyber threats.
•

• The three primary breakages in standard risk management caused by quantum computing.

• Why IT should be the executor rather than the owner of a transformation.

• The importance of a business-led steering committee for accountability.

• The first practical steps boards can take to begin the transition.

About Louise Davey

Louise Davey is the president of LDIQ and an expert in quantum readiness and post-quantum cryptography. She is the author of Quantum How, a guide for leadership in the quantum era, and brings a unique perspective as a former experimental nuclear physicist who transitioned into business leadership.

Your roadmap to quantum resilience

[01:14] Step 1: Connect physics with business dynamics

Louise shares how her background in experimental nuclear physics helped her understand the structural dynamics of large organizations. She discusses the transition from laboratory research to the business world and how these two fields intersect in the quantum era.

Key Question: Is your leadership team viewing quantum readiness through a scientific lens or a business lens?

[08:37] Step 2: Reframe the conversation for the boardroom

Technical practitioners often focus on qubits and algorithms, but these concepts can lose the attention of executive leadership. Louise explains how to shift the dialogue toward operational resilience and the potential impacts on an organization’s long-term viability.

Key Question: How can you translate cryptographic vulnerabilities into measurable business impacts like reputation and compliance?

[15:30] Step 3: Address the timing offset and digital trust

The risk of harvest now, decrypt later means that the actions taken today affect the security of the organization in the future. Louise describes how this dynamic invalidates current assumptions about digital trust and identity.

Key Question: Does your current risk management framework account for threats that will manifest long after the initial data harvest?

[23:08] Step 4: Establish business ownership of the transformation

A common failure mode in large transformations is the assumption that IT should lead the initiative. Louise emphasizes that IT is an enabler and that the strategy must be driven by business leadership through structured committees.

Key Question: Who in the business is presiding over the committee that is accountable for your quantum transition?

[37:00] Step 5: Move from awareness to actionable advisory

The final step involves securing expert guidance to educate the board and senior executive teams. Louise outlines the importance of performing a rapid risk assessment to ensure the organization is directionally correct from the start.

Key Question: Has your board been equipped with the right questions to challenge the information they receive about quantum risk?

Episode resources

Louise Davey on LinkedIn

LDIQ Website

Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

PQShield Website

Want exclusive insights on quantum migration? Stay ahead of the curve. Subscribe to Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Podcasts.

✔ Get insider knowledge from leading cybersecurity experts.

✔ Learn practical steps to future-proof your organization.

✔ Stay updated on regulatory changes and industry trends.

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Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

At RSA Conference 2026, the conversation around post-quantum cryptography has clearly shifted. The “why” is no longer the challenge. Organizations understand the risk and the real struggle now lies in execution.

In this episode, Aisling Dawson of ABI Research and Itan Barmes of Qiz Security unpack what’s slowing progress. From fragmented cryptographic inventories to unclear ownership and budget constraints, the barriers are as much organizational as they are technical.

They explore why chasing a perfect inventory can stall action, why ecosystem coordination is the hardest problem to solve, and how regulation, vendor readiness, and internal alignment all play a role. The takeaway is: start small, focus on what matters, and build momentum. Quantum migration isn’t a one-time project. It’s a long-term shift in how organizations approach security.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why quantum conversations are losing visibility despite growing importance

• What is actually slowing down post-quantum migration today

• Why cryptographic inventory alone is not enough

• What cryptographic posture management really means

• How to avoid “analysis paralysis” in crypto discovery

• Why ecosystem synchronization is the biggest challenge

• How regulation is shaping (and slowing) adoption

• Why organizational alignment matters as much as technology

• What practical first steps enterprises should take in 2026

• Why starting imperfectly is better than waiting

Your Roadmap to Quantum Readiness

[01:19] Step 1: Awareness Is No Longer the Problem

Quantum risk is now widely understood. The challenge has moved on from convincing people that it matters to figuring out how to act on it. Organizations are moving from strategy discussions to real implementation decisions, and that is where progress slows down.

Key Question: Are you still discussing why quantum matters, or have you started figuring out how to act on it?

[02:17] Step 2: Execution Is Harder Than Expected

Budget constraints, performance limitations, and incomplete standards are making implementation difficult. Many organizations underestimated the complexity of integrating quantum-safe cryptography into existing systems.

Key Question: Have you accounted for the real operational and financial cost of migration?

[05:59] Step 3: Visibility Comes First, But Perfection Is a Trap

Cryptographic inventory is a necessary first step, but chasing 100% visibility can stall progress. Getting partial visibility and acting on it is far more effective than waiting for a perfect picture.

Key Question: Are you waiting for complete visibility before taking action?

[07:39] Step 4: From Inventory to Posture Management

Knowing what cryptography exists is not enough. Organizations need to understand risk, prioritize assets, and take action. Cryptographic posture management connects visibility with remediation.

Key Question: Do you know not just what you have, but how secure it actually is?

[10:02] Step 5: This Is a Business Problem, Not Just a Technical One

Quantum migration decisions depend on business context. Parameters like asset criticality, lifecycle, cost, and operational impact all matter, and technical fixes alone are not sufficient.

Key Question: Are your quantum decisions aligned with business priorities?

[24:29] Step 6: Start Small, But Start Now

Organizations do not need perfect plans to begin. Building internal alignment, securing executive buy-in, and taking incremental steps can unlock progress. Waiting only increases risk.

Key Question: What is the smallest meaningful step you can take today?

Episode Resources

Aisling Dawson on LinkedInABI Research WebsiteItan Barmes on LinkedInQiz Security WebsitePQShield Website

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

Post-quantum cryptography is often framed as a future technical upgrade. Carolina Polito approaches it as an organizational transition that is already underway. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, Carolina explores how quantum readiness moves beyond awareness into execution.

She begins by reframing how we think about technology itself. Systems are not neutral tools. They are shaped by societal decisions and, in turn, shape the institutions that rely on them. This perspective helps explain why quantum readiness cannot be confined to technical teams alone.

The conversation then moves into operationalization. While most organizations recognize the quantum threat, translating that awareness into action remains a challenge. Carolina explains why attempting a complete inventory of cryptographic assets can slow progress and why prioritization is more effective. By focusing on high-value, long-lived, and exposed assets, organizations can begin building a practical migration strategy.

Vendor ecosystems emerge as a central theme. Many cryptographic dependencies sit outside direct control, making vendor engagement critical. Carolina outlines what organizations should look for, including transparency around cryptographic usage, transition roadmaps, and crypto agility.

At a policy level, the discussion explores Europe’s approach to quantum readiness. While there is progress across member states, coordination remains complex. Standards, procurement, and national strategies need to evolve together rather than in sequence. The absence of post-quantum requirements in emerging digital systems also highlights missed opportunities that could increase future costs.

Carolina closes with a practical lens. Organizations do not need to solve everything at once. Assigning ownership, prioritizing key assets, and embedding quantum readiness into existing processes can create momentum without overwhelming the system.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why quantum readiness is an organizational and managerial challenge

• Why complete cryptographic inventory is less useful than prioritization

• How to identify high-value, no-regret starting points

• What defines a quantum-ready vendor

• Why crypto agility is critical for long-term resilience

• How supply chain dependencies shape migration complexity

• Where Europe stands on PQC coordination and policy

• Why standards, procurement, and strategy must move in parallel

• How new digital systems can create future retrofit challenges

• What the first practical step toward quantum readiness looks like

Carolina Polito is a researcher in the cybersecurity program at the Center for European Policy Studies and a PhD candidate in international relations at LUISS University in Rome. Her work focuses on cybersecurity, governance, and geopolitics, with a particular emphasis on how emerging technologies shape institutional capabilities and policy decisions.

Your Roadmap to Quantum Resilience

[03:39] Step 1: Technology Shapes Institutional Boundaries

Carolina introduces a broader lens. Technology is not neutral. It influences how institutions operate and what they are able to do. This framing shifts quantum readiness from a technical upgrade to something structural within organizations.

Key Question: Are your systems shaping your capabilities in ways you fully understand?

[08:04] Step 2: Moving From Awareness to Execution

Awareness of quantum risk is already widespread. The challenge now is turning that awareness into a structured transition. Carolina explains why organizations need a workable approach that aligns migration with existing processes.

Key Question: Do you have a transition plan that fits how your organization already operates?

[11:41] Step 3: Prioritization Over Perfect Visibility

Trying to map every cryptographic asset can create more noise than clarity. Carolina highlights the importance of focusing on what is critical rather than attempting completeness.

Key Question: Are you focusing on what matters most or trying to see everything?

[19:19] Step 4: Vendor Readiness Shapes Your Progress

A large portion of cryptographic risk sits within vendor ecosystems. Carolina outlines what organizations should look for when evaluating vendors and why their readiness directly impacts your own transition.

Key Question: Do your vendors enable your transition or create hidden dependencies?

[20:41] Step 5: Start With No-Regret Use Cases

Rather than solving everything at once, organizations can begin with assets that are high value, highly exposed, and difficult to replace later. These decisions shape long-term resilience.

Key Question: Which assets would you regret not protecting early?

[34:52] Step 6: Coordination Must Happen in Parallel

Quantum readiness requires multiple efforts to move at the same time. Standards, procurement, and strategy cannot wait on each other. Progress depends on coordination across these areas.

Key Question: Are your efforts moving together or waiting on each other?

Episode Resources

Carolina Polito on LinkedInCenter for European Policy Studies (CEPS)

Johannes Lintzen on LinkedInPQShield Website

Want exclusive insights on quantum migration? Stay ahead of the curve. Subscribe to Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Podcasts.

✔ Get insider knowledge from leading cybersecurity experts.
✔ Learn practical steps to future-proof your organization.
✔ Stay updated on regulatory changes and industry trends.

Need help subscribing? Click here for step-by-step instructions.

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

Most conversations about post-quantum cryptography start with algorithms. Sarah McCarthy starts with people. As Quantum Readiness Program Lead at Citi, Sarah works in the realm of payments, compliance, and cryptographic change inside one of the world's most regulated and interconnected financial institutions. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, she brings that perspective to bear on what large-scale PQC migration actually looks like in practice.

Sarah's background spans research, vendor-side work, and enterprise security, giving her a view across the full cryptographic supply chain. That experience shapes how she thinks about readiness. At Citi, the quantum readiness program began in 2022, predating much of the current regulatory urgency. What started with foundational questions about data sensitivity and retention has expanded into a formal vendor survey, internal education efforts, and a growing set of no-regret technical actions already underway.

One of the clearest themes from the conversation is the gap between how organizations think about PQC migration and what it actually demands. The instinct is to frame it as an algorithm upgrade. In practice, it requires identifying which systems hold sensitive data, understanding how long that data needs to stay protected, coordinating across teams that may not yet see cryptography as their problem, and building internal champions who can translate technical risk into organizational action.

Sarah also addresses the vendor landscape directly. Citi's quantum readiness survey of suppliers is surfacing meaningful patterns about where the ecosystem stands and which vendors are genuinely prepared to engage with these questions. Unsurprisingly, the most capable responses are coming from key management providers and hardware security module vendors. Others are still catching up, not just technically but organizationally.

The episode also tackles the regulatory picture across payments. Standards bodies and working groups are moving, but interoperability across jurisdictions remains a live challenge. For organizations waiting on regulatory direction before acting, Sarah's message is clear: some steps make sense right now regardless of what regulators decide. Upgrading AES key sizes for data at rest, moving to TLS 1.3, and identifying crown-jewel data are all defensible moves that will not be undone by future guidance.

Sarah closes with what she expects from the next twelve months at Citi and with the framing that best captures her overall approach: quantum migration is an operational challenge before it is a technical one. The organizations that prepare well will find the actual algorithm switch far more manageable than they feared.

What you’ll learn:

• How Citi's quantum readiness program has evolved since launching in 2022
• What a vendor quantum readiness survey reveals about supply chain preparedness
• Why PQC migration is fundamentally a coordination problem, not just a technology upgrade
• What no-regret first steps any organization can take today, regardless of size or resources
• How to identify and prioritize crown-jewel data before full migration begins
• Why internal champions matter more than a large dedicated team
• What regulators and standards bodies in the payments space are signalling for 2026
• How to frame quantum readiness as an operational challenge to get organizational buy-in
• What Citi is focused on achieving over the next twelve months
• How the 80/20 rule applies to post-quantum migration: preparation is the hard part

Sarah McCarthy is the Quantum Readiness Program Lead at Citi, where she brings together a world of payments, compliance, and post-quantum cryptography. Her background spans academic research, vendor-side security work, and large-scale enterprise risk, giving her a rare cross-sectional view of the cryptographic supply chain. At Citi, she leads efforts to assess and reduce quantum risk across a globally interconnected payments environment, including the design and rollout of a quantum readiness vendor survey program. Her work focuses on translating complex cryptographic risk into practical organizational action across highly regulated, multi-jurisdictional systems.

Your roadmap to Quantum Resilience

[04:08] Step 1: The Groundwork Is the Migration

Sarah draws a direct line between show jumping and PQC. In show jumping, dressage, which is all the flat work done before any fence is in sight, is what makes the jump possible. Cutting corners does not save time. It causes failure at the moment that matters and the same logic applies here. Most of the effort in post-quantum migration is not switching algorithms. It is everything that has to happen first: understanding what you are protecting, mapping dependencies, building internal relationships, and creating the conditions for change to land cleanly.

Key Question: Is your organisation building toward the jump, or assuming the jump will sort itself out?

[08:12] Step 2: Your Vendor Survey Is a Map of Your Migration Risk

Citi launched a formal quantum readiness survey for their supplier network, built around the NIST 8547 report and the algorithms slated for deprecation. It asks vendors what post-quantum algorithms they plan to support, what their timelines look like, and whether they have lab capacity for performance and interoperability testing. So far it has gone mainly to vendors already active in the quantum community. And even there, a pattern is clear. The most capable responses come from key management providers and hardware security module vendors. Others cannot yet identify who inside their organisation should be answering. That gap tells you exactly where your migration dependencies are most exposed and which vendor relationships need attention before they become blockers.

Key Question: If you surveyed your critical vendors today, do you know which ones could answer and which ones could not?

[15:30] Step 3: The First Step Has Nothing to Do With Post-Quantum Algorithms

When Sarah describes what Citi's quantum readiness program focused on first, the answer is deliberately unglamorous. Start with data at rest. Make sure AES key sizes are large enough. Then go to the teams responsible for databases, find out what upgrading actually requires, and make sure no data falls through the gaps. In an organisation the size of Citi, that means finding databases that have been running without anyone looking after them. None of this is post-quantum cryptography. But it is foundational, it will not be undone by future guidance, and it forces you to understand the two attack vectors that quantum actually creates: harvest now decrypt later, which targets long-life confidential data, and trust now forge later, which targets the integrity of long-term contracts and records. You cannot prioritise what you have not found.

Key Question: Do you know where your long-life sensitive data lives, and whether what is protecting it today is actually sufficient?

[22:15] Step 4: You Do Not Need a Big Team. You Need the Right Coalition.

Sarah's quantum readiness team at Citi is, by her own description, a negligible number of people. What makes the program work is not headcount but the coalition built around it. The team recruits champions from legal, compliance, risk, and emerging technology, each with their own stake in the outcome and their own routes into parts of the organisation the core team cannot reach alone. Compliance teams respond to the threat of future penalties. Risk teams have frameworks that absorb quantum threat modelling. Quantum opportunity work opens doors that a security briefing would not. A Hudson Institute study put the potential economic impact of a quantum attack on financial institutions at three to four trillion dollars. That number moves budget conversations. The message is the same for organisations without a formal centre of excellence: find the people who already have a reason to care, and give them what they need to carry it forward.

Key Question: Who across your organisation has a stake in this that they do not yet know about?

[29:50] Step 5: Use Cases First. Inventory Later.

There is a persistent assumption that full cryptographic asset discovery has to come before anything else can happen. Sarah challenges it directly. The Quantum Safe Financial Forum report Sarah contributed to builds a prioritisation matrix scored on migration cost, solution availability, number of dependencies, and geographic exposure. The point-of-sale terminal example makes the case concretely. Offline POS transactions use asymmetric cryptography and might look like an obvious target until you examine the use case and find that most of those transactions are negligible in value and can be handled by moving online and upgrading symmetric key sizes instead. Use-case analysis stops you from putting migration effort in the wrong places.

Key Question: Have you identified your highest-risk use cases, or are you waiting for a complete inventory before doing anything?

[42:56] Step 6: Migration Is a Coordination Problem, Not a Technology Problem

Sarah's closing reframe is the most important one in the episode. The instinct is to treat post-quantum migration as an algorithm upgrade. Hand it to the security team. Wait for a technical answer. But what it actually requires is getting legal, risk, compliance, procurement, software developers, and budget holders onto the same page and keeping them there. No team can do this in isolation. And the reason it has to be everyone's priority is not complicated. Financial institutions run on trust – from customers, vendors, and peers. Strong cryptography is what makes that trust possible. Once that framing lands, quantum readiness stops being a security problem and becomes an organisational one. The algorithm switch is the jump. Coordination is the dressage that makes it possible.

Key Question: Is your organisation treating this as a coordination challenge, or is it still waiting for one team to solve it?

Episode Resources

• Sarah McCarthy on LinkedIn
• Citi Website
• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn
• PQShield Website

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Cybersecurity threats have evolved significantly from the early days of individual hackers experimenting independently. In their conversation at Mobile World Conference 2026, Geri Revay explains how cybercrime has matured into a structured and profitable ecosystem that resembles a business supply chain. Instead of one attacker performing every step of an intrusion, the work is now divided across specialized groups. Some actors focus on gaining initial access to corporate networks and then sell that access to others. Other groups build ransomware tools, while separate teams manage ransom negotiations or distribute stolen data.

This division of labor dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for cybercriminals. Attackers no longer need deep technical expertise to carry out an operation. Many tools and services can now be purchased directly from underground marketplaces. As a result, cybercrime has become more opportunistic, more scalable, and more accessible than it was even a few years ago.

However, defenders also have access to AI driven capabilities. Security teams already collect enormous amounts of telemetry through logs, network monitoring, and endpoint detection tools. AI systems can analyze this data to detect anomalies, identify emerging threats, and automate parts of the defensive workflow. Over time, this access to large datasets may give defenders a strategic advantage.

The conversation also explores how cybersecurity challenges differ between traditional IT environments and operational technology environments. Industrial systems often prioritize operational availability and safety above all else. Many devices run for decades and cannot easily be patched or modified. This creates a different security model where monitoring, segmentation, and deception technologies play a more important role than frequent system updates.

Haon’s work focuses on automated AI red teaming. Instead of relying only on human testers, AI driven attacker agents can simulate thousands of potential attacks against an AI model or service. This allows organizations to identify vulnerabilities earlier and test whether guardrails and policies are functioning correctly.

One of the most significant emerging risks involves physical AI systems. Autonomous vehicles, drones, and robotics rely on multimodal inputs such as images, audio, and sensor data to interpret their environment. If attackers manipulate these inputs, they may influence how the system behaves. As AI systems move from digital environments into the physical world, the consequences of security failures could extend beyond data breaches and into real world harm.

Across both conversations, a consistent theme emerges. The cybersecurity landscape is expanding in both scale and complexity. Attackers are accelerating their operations through automation and specialization, while defenders must also learn how to secure the new technologies they are building. Organizations that fail to address AI related risks early may discover vulnerabilities that traditional security frameworks were never designed to handle.

What You’ll Learn:

• How cybercrime evolved from individual hackers to a structured ecosystem
• Why ransomware services and access brokers lowered the barrier to entry for attackers
• How artificial intelligence accelerates cyber attacks and defensive analysis
• Why defenders may gain long term advantages through data and telemetry
• How operational technology environments create unique security challenges
• Why enterprise AI systems introduce a new category of attack surface
• How automated AI red teaming identifies vulnerabilities faster than manual testing
• Why physical AI systems may create the next major cybersecurity risk

Your Roadmap to Understanding the Next Phase of Cybersecurity

[07:12] Step 1: Cybercrime Has Become a Supply Chain

Cybercrime has evolved from isolated attackers into a structured ecosystem. Initial access brokers focus on gaining entry into networks and selling that access. Ransomware developers create tools and services. Other groups handle negotiations and payment collection. Individuals no longer need to build tools or conduct complex research themselves. They can purchase the components they need and focus only on one stage of the attack chain. As a result, cybercrime has become more scalable and more opportunistic.

Key Question: If cybercrime now operates like a supply chain, are organizations preparing for attacks that can be launched faster and at greater scale?

[08:03] Step 2: AI Is Accelerating the Speed of Attacks

Artificial intelligence allows attackers to automate tasks that previously required time and expertise. The result is not necessarily more sophisticated attacks, but faster ones. AI enables threat actors to iterate quickly and scale their operations. This speed advantage allows attackers to experiment and adapt before defenders have time to respond.

Key Question: If attackers can move faster with AI, how quickly can your security teams detect and respond?

[10:34] Step 3: Data Gives Defenders a Long Term Advantage

While AI gives attackers speed, defenders may hold the long term advantage because of data. Security operations centers collect vast volumes of telemetry from networks, endpoints, and infrastructure. This data provides the foundation for AI driven detection and analysis. When AI systems analyze behavioral patterns across these datasets, they can identify anomalies and emerging threats earlier than manual processes. Over time, this combination of large scale telemetry and AI driven analysis may strengthen defensive capabilities.

Key Question: Are organizations using the data they collect to strengthen detection, or simply storing it without extracting insight?

[15:31] Step 4: Operational Technology Requires a Different Security Approach

Industrial and operational technology environments operate under different priorities than traditional IT systems. Many devices run for decades and cannot be patched frequently. Because of this, security teams must rely on monitoring, segmentation, and deception techniques rather than constant updates. Security practices that work in IT environments often require significant adaptation in OT systems.

Key Question: Are security strategies designed specifically for operational technology environments, or are IT security practices being applied without adjustment?

[39:55] Step 5: AI Systems Introduce a New Category of Risk

As enterprises deploy AI systems across their operations, these systems introduce new attack surfaces. AI models may have access to internal company data, business processes, and automated workflows. If attackers manipulate inputs or exploit vulnerabilities, they may influence how these systems behave. AI systems can affect business decisions, automate internal processes, and interact with users. Without proper guardrails and testing, vulnerabilities in these systems may lead to operational or reputational damage.

Key Question: How are organizations validating the security of AI systems before deploying them at scale?

[57:09] Step 6: Physical AI May Be the Next Major Security Incident

The next phase of AI deployment will involve physical systems such as autonomous vehicles, drones, and robotics. These systems rely on multimodal inputs such as visual data, audio signals, and sensor information to interpret their environment. If attackers manipulate these inputs, they may influence how the system behaves. Unlike traditional cybersecurity incidents, failures in physical AI systems could result in real world harm. As AI becomes embedded in physical infrastructure, cybersecurity risks may extend beyond digital environments.

Key Question: Are organizations preparing for security risks that affect both digital systems and the physical world?

Episode Resources:

• Geri Revay on LinkedIn
• Fortinet Website
• Haon Park on LinkedIn
• AIM Intelligence Website
• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn
• PQShield Website

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

Post-quantum cryptography migration is not primarily about choosing Kyber or ML-KEM. It is about whether your organization can rotate keys, abstract cryptography away from developers, and adapt under pressure. In this episode, Stefan Kölbl shares an operator-level perspective from inside Google’s PQC rollout, including early hybrid deployments that predated final NIST standards.

He explains why encryption in transit was prioritized, why signing remains harder than key exchange, and how Store Now, Decrypt Later risk justified early action.

The discussion moves beyond theory into operational friction: cache misses triggered by heap allocation behavior, lifecycle blind spots revealed by inventory tools, and the difficulty of prioritizing thousands of signing keys without ownership context.

Stefan’s core message is simple but powerful: PQC is not a one-time upgrade. It is an opportunity to fix key management. Organizations that treat migration as an agility exercise rather than an algorithm swap, will be the ones able to adapt when standards evolve again.

What You’ll Learn

• What it really takes to operationalize post-quantum cryptography at hyperscale

• Why PQC is fundamentally a key management and lifecycle problem

• How crypto agility reduces friction during algorithm transitions

• Why Store Now, Decrypt Later justified early hybrid deployment

• How Google approached PQC before final NIST standards were published

• Why encryption in transit is easier to migrate than signing

• Where firmware signatures and hardware-bound keys create long-term risk

• Why inventory dashboards alone cannot drive prioritization

• How lifecycle context determines what to fix first

• What performance surprises can emerge during large-scale PQC rollout

About Stefan Kölbl

Stefan Kölbl is an Information Security Engineer at Google, where he has been deeply involved in the company’s internal post-quantum cryptography rollout. His work spans early hybrid deployments, encryption-in-transit migration, key lifecycle management, and performance validation at hyperscale.

Stefan brings an operator-level perspective to quantum-safe migration, focusing on crypto agility, secure-by-default developer frameworks, and scalable key management architecture. His experience includes navigating PQC implementation prior to final NIST standardization and addressing real-world constraints such as signing lifecycles, hardware-bound keys, and system-level performance interactions.

Your Roadmap to Post-Quantum Agility

[00:02:28] Step 1: Shift the Focus From Algorithms to Key Rotation

Stefan reframes the PQC conversation. Updating code can be abstracted. Libraries and APIs can shield most developers from algorithm changes. The real operational challenge lies in key material. If you cannot rotate keys cleanly, you cannot switch algorithms cleanly.

Poor key management surfaces quickly under PQC pressure. Migration becomes difficult not because the math is hard, but because lifecycle ownership was unclear. Crypto agility, in practice, means being able to rotate without disruption.

Key Question: If you needed to rotate every key today, how much friction would you encounter?

[00:04:41] Step 2: Treat PQC as a Security Hygiene Upgrade

Stefan emphasizes that PQC should not be framed as a one-off cryptographic event. It is a forcing function. Organizations already thinking about PQC have an opportunity to improve rotation practices, lifecycle tracking, and resilience more broadly. If you use this moment to institutionalize automated, reliable key rotation, you strengthen your posture against future threats beyond quantum.

Key Question: Are you treating PQC as a compliance task or a resilience upgrade?

[00:07:51] Step 3: Accept Store Now, Decrypt Later as a Real Risk

For Google, “Store Now, Decrypt Later” is not a theoretical concern. The possibility that encrypted traffic captured today could be decrypted in the future helped justify early hybrid deployments, even before final NIST standards were published. Prior Chrome experiments provided the confidence to move forward, while hybrid designs ensured that introducing post-quantum mechanisms would not weaken existing security protections.

Key Question: If encrypted traffic were harvested today, how confident are you in its long-term confidentiality?

[00:12:49] Step 4: Recognize That Signing Is the Harder Problem

Encryption in transit is comparatively easier to migrate because protocols like TLS 1.3 already support cryptographic agility, allowing new key exchange mechanisms to be introduced without major system redesign. Signing infrastructure, however, is far more rigid. Firmware signatures, hardware roots of trust, and long-lived devices often rely on keys that are embedded in hardware or tied to decade-long lifecycles. In many cases, these keys cannot be rotated easily and the devices cannot be upgraded after deployment, which makes signing systems the long-tail risk in post-quantum migration.

Key Question: Which of your signatures are tied to hardware or decade-long lifecycles?

[00:18:18] Step 5: Inventory Is the Beginning, Not the End

Dashboards provide visibility, but visibility alone does not create prioritization. A list of RSA or ECC signing keys tells you nothing about ownership, business criticality, rotation feasibility, or lifecycle exposure. Without context, inventory becomes paralysis. True progress requires integrating lifecycle intelligence, ownership mapping, and automation.

Key Question: Does your crypto inventory tell you what to fix first - or just how much you have?

[00:28:09] Step 6: Expect Performance Surprises at Scale

Benchmarking does not always capture how systems behave in real-world environments. In one rollout, a PQC implementation caused unexpected cache misses because of how it allocated heap memory. The algorithm itself was fast, but its memory patterns disrupted system performance. This was not a cryptographic failure; it was a systems interaction issue. At scale, migrations often surface these kinds of edge cases that are difficult to anticipate during initial testing.

Key Question: Do you have regression testing capable of catching subtle systemic performance impacts?

Episode Resources

• Stefan Kölbl on LinkedIn

• ProteQC Website

• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

• PQShield Website

Want exclusive insights on quantum migration? Stay ahead of the curve. Subscribe to Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Podcasts.

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Post-quantum cryptography is often framed as a future technical upgrade. Darren Bender challenges that framing and treats it as a legal exposure that already exists. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, Darren introduces post-quantum negligence and explains how US courts may assess quantum risk using established legal doctrines. The discussion centers on a timing problem. Adversaries can harvest encrypted data today and decrypt it years later once quantum capability arrives. That gap breaks the traditional negligence model, where duty, breach, harm, and causation appear close together. With Harvest Now, Decrypt Later, harm may surface long after the decision to delay action. Darren explains why foreseeability becomes central, shaped by expert forecasts, Mosca’s theorem, and the Learned Hand reasonableness test. When migration cost drops below expected harm, inaction starts to look unreasonable. He outlines why financial services may be at that tipping point now, why healthcare may already be past it, and how delay compounds exposure. The episode also addresses performative quantum readiness. Public claims without real cryptographic work can raise legal risk by creating expectations. Darren closes with practical guidance for 2026, emphasizing documentation, governance, and review that hold up later.

What You’ll Learn

• What post-quantum negligence means and why it fills a US regulatory gap

• Why Harvest Now, Decrypt Later disrupts traditional negligence timelines

• How foreseeability is established through expert consensus, not speculation

• How Mosca’s theorem frames exposure versus migration runway

• How the Learned Hand test determines when inaction becomes unreasonable

• Why financial services may face the first post-quantum negligence cases

• What evidence courts may expect when reviewing 2024–2026 decisions

• Why “quantum-ready” marketing without real work creates legal risk

• How liability spreads across vendors, cloud providers, and supply chains

• What leaders can do in 2026 to reduce future legal exposure

Darren Bender is a US litigation attorney with a dual background in law and IT automation. He serves as Managing Attorney at Zwicker & Associates and is Co-Founder and Chief Litigation Officer in the post-quantum cryptography sector for a newly formed UK advisory firm, ProtecQC. Before practicing litigation, Darren spent nearly a decade as a business systems analyst at First American, where he designed and automated complex, high-volume, data-sensitive workflows across national production systems. His work today sits at the intersection of law, governance, and cryptographic risk, with a focus on how emerging technical threats translate into real legal exposure.

Your Roadmap to Quantum Resilience

[01:07] Step 1: Quantum Risk Already Creates Legal Duty

Darren’s point is not that new laws suddenly create responsibility. It’s that responsibility shows up once a risk is widely known. In the US, courts do not wait for regulators to spell everything out. They look at whether a reasonable organization should have known about a risk and whether it had the ability to act. With public guidance, global coordination, and expert consensus now in the open, post-quantum risk is no longer obscure. Choosing to wait is still a choice, and courts will ask why that choice made sense at the time.

Key Question: If harm surfaces years from now, can you show why inaction was reasonable then?

[06:28] Step 2: Harvest Now, Decrypt Later Breaks the Negligence Timeline

Quantum risk does not look like a normal breach. There may be no alarm, no visible damage, and no clear moment of failure. Data can be copied quietly today and only become dangerous years later when it is decrypted. Darren explains that this stretches negligence across time. Courts may not focus on when harm finally appeared, but on earlier moments when data was taken and no action followed. Each year of delay becomes part of the story.

Key Question: If a court looks back year by year, what would your decisions show?

[10:11] Step 3: Foreseeability Is Already Quantified

Darren stresses that foreseeability does not mean knowing exactly when quantum breaks encryption. It means having credible signals that risk is coming. Courts already rely on expert forecasts and probability in many cases. Public quantum threat timelines and expert surveys fall squarely into that category. They are not fringe opinions. From a legal view, this turns quantum risk from speculation into something measurable. Ignoring that evidence does not create flexibility. It creates exposure.

Key Question: Are you treating expert forecasts as real input, or hoping uncertainty protects you?

[12:32] Step 4: When the Reasonableness Test Stops Being Theoretical

Darren uses the Learned Hand test to explain when delay stops being defensible. The idea is simple. If the cost of fixing a problem is lower than the damage likely to come from ignoring it, doing nothing no longer looks reasonable. For PQC, that comparison depends on what data you hold, how long it stays valuable, and how hard it is to migrate. Once expected harm outweighs migration cost, waiting stops looking like judgment and starts looking like neglect.

Key Question: If someone did the math today, would waiting still make sense?

[13:04] Step 5: Why Financial Services Reaches the Line First

Financial services sits right at the edge. Data sticks around long enough to be valuable to attackers, but not so long that action today is pointless. Losses are measurable. Regulators pay attention. Most importantly, starting now can still prevent real harm. Darren contrasts this with healthcare, where records last decades and prevention may already be too late. Where harm could still have been avoided, courts are far less forgiving of delay.

Key Question: If Q-day arrives on schedule, will delay be your weakest point?

[20:08] Step 6: Performative Readiness, Shared Liability, and What Courts Will Expect

Darren warns that claiming quantum readiness without doing the work is worse than staying quiet. Public claims create expectations, and expectations create liability. From there, risk spreads across vendors, cloud providers, and integrators. When something fails, plaintiffs follow the money under joint and several liability. Courts won’t expect perfection. They will expect proof you took the issue seriously. That means inventories, real risk analysis, board awareness, documented decisions, and regular follow-ups. This is legal hygiene, not panic.

Key Question: If everything was laid out in court, would your records help you or hurt you?

Episode Resources

• Darren Bender on LinkedIn

• ProteQC Website

• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

• PQShield Website

Want exclusive insights on quantum migration? Stay ahead of the curve. Subscribe to Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Podcasts.

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✔ Learn practical steps to future-proof your organization.

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Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

Post-quantum cryptography often enters organizations as a headline problem, then quickly turns into an operational one. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, Jan Schaumann, Chief Information Security Architect at Akamai Technologies, approaches PQC from the perspective of someone who has spent decades operating real systems at internet scale. From his view, the challenge is not quantum theory, but sequencing change safely across infrastructure that cannot all move at once. Jan walks through how Akamai approached PQC over several years, starting before standards fully settled and aligning progress with customer demand, compliance timelines, and platform resilience. He explains why TLS 1.3 migration remains the most common blocker, especially on the origin side, where legacy stacks, embedded clients, and IoT devices stretch upgrade timelines far beyond expectations. Rather than pushing PQC everywhere at once, Akamai split the problem into distinct traffic paths: client-to-edge, edge-to-origin, and internal connections. Each path carries a different threat model and operational risk. This framing enabled opt-in deployment, staged rollouts, and safer change, while still delivering meaningful protection against harvest-now-decrypt-later threats. Throughout the conversation, Jan returns to a single idea: PQC is not the finish line. It is a forcing function that exposes how well an organization understands its cryptography, how quickly it can upgrade, and whether it can repeat the process when the next cryptographic shift arrives.

What You’ll Learn

• Why PQC migration is primarily an operations and change-management problem

• How unfinished TLS 1.3 migrations block post-quantum progress

• Why Akamai separated PQC rollout by traffic leg instead of one global switch

• How customer risk tolerance and regulation shape real deployment timelines

• Why hybrid key exchange works today without locking teams into permanent compromise

• How PQC can be used to build crypto agility, not just meet compliance deadlines

Jan Schaumann is Chief Information Security Architect at Akamai Technologies, where he guides cryptographic strategy, infrastructure security, and safe-change practices across one of the internet’s most critical platforms. He previously served as Principal Architect at Akamai and has held senior security roles at companies including Yahoo, Twitter, and Etsy. Jan is also an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Stevens Institute of Technology, where he has taught graduate-level systems and Unix programming since 2001. He is a long-time developer with the NetBSD Foundation and describes himself, accurately, as an actual human on the internet who refuses to grow up.

Your Roadmap to Quantum Resilience

[05:57] Step 1: Stop Treating PQC as a Quantum Problem -

Jan pushes back on the idea that post-quantum cryptography requires quantum expertise or radical architectural change. In practice, he explains, PQC shows up as new key exchange mechanisms and ciphers layered into systems teams already operate. He points out that migrations like TLS 1.2 to TLS 1.3 were far more disruptive than enabling post-quantum key exchange inside TLS 1.3. The “quantum” label can help unlock executive attention, but it also intimidates engineers and customers who assume the work is experimental or fragile. Jan’s advice is to strip away the mystique early, frame PQC as disciplined crypto upgrade work, and focus teams on execution rather than theory.

Key Question: Are teams slowing themselves down by treating PQC as exotic instead of operational?

[15:09] Step 2: Finish the TLS 1.3 Migration First -

Jan is clear that PQC adoption stalls long before post-quantum algorithms become the issue. TLS-based PQC requires TLS 1.3, and many organizations are still running TLS 1.2 deep in their environments. While Akamai’s edge has supported TLS 1.3 for years, origin systems often lag. Jan describes why. Customers rely on legacy stacks, external vendors, embedded clients, and IoT devices that were never designed for frequent updates. In regulated industries, upgrade fear compounds the delay. Teams assume PQC is a simple cipher switch, then discover they must modernize entire origin environments first.

Key Question: Do you have full visibility into where TLS 1.2 still runs and why it has not moved?

[21:11] Step 3: Break PQC Into Traffic Paths -

Rather than treating PQC as a single migration, Jan explains how Akamai split the work into three distinct paths: client-to-edge, edge-to-origin, and internal traffic. Each path carries a different threat model, upgrade cost, and urgency. Client-to-edge protects the largest volume of traffic and addresses harvest-now-decrypt-later risks. Edge-to-origin depends heavily on customer readiness. Internal traffic faces a different attacker model altogether. By separating these paths, Akamai avoided all-or-nothing decisions and made progress measurable. This framing also helped customers understand where PQC delivered immediate value versus where it required longer-term planning.

Key Question: Are you prioritizing PQC by actual risk paths or treating everything as equally urgent?

[23:45] Step 4: Use Phased Rollouts to Protect Stability -

Jan describes why Akamai chose opt-in deployment instead of flipping PQC on globally. Many customers operate in financial, healthcare, and government environments where untested change carries serious consequences. Akamai’s rollout relied on staged percentages, canary networks, and gradual expansion to validate behavior before wider exposure. While this pace can feel frustrating to engineers eager to ship, Jan notes it avoided outages and preserved customer trust. Moving slower also allowed Akamai to adapt as standards evolved, rather than locking in early assumptions. For Jan, resilience and safe change matter more than being first.

Key Question: Does your deployment model reward caution and validation or speed at any cost?

[25:58] Step 5: Let Standards Maturity Save You Work -

Jan explains how tracking standards activity closely prevented significant rework. Akamai began preparing for Kyber before NIST finalized selections, then watched the industry pivot quickly to standardized ML-KEM. Because the rollout was staged, Akamai avoided shipping Kyber only to replace it weeks later. Jan also discusses FIPS considerations and how early uncertainty around hybrid compliance nearly forced support for multiple key exchanges. When NIST clarified that hybrid ML-KEM with classical exchange met FIPS requirements, entire branches of planned work became unnecessary. Waiting just long enough reduced complexity without delaying progress.

Key Question: Are you building flexibility so standards changes remove work instead of creating it?

[36:06] Step 6: Build Crypto Agility, Not One-Time Compliance -

Jan closes with a broader lesson. PQC is not the last cryptographic transition organizations will face. Whether the trigger is quantum, regulation, or vulnerability discovery, change will come again. Teams that treat PQC as a one-off compliance task miss the opportunity. Jan urges organizations to invest in inventory, visibility, and repeatable upgrade processes so future transitions hurt less. Knowing where cryptography lives, how it is negotiated, and how to replace it safely becomes the real security win. PQC simply exposes whether those foundations already exist.

Key Question: Will this migration leave you better prepared for the next cryptographic shift?

Episode Resources

• Jan Schaumann on LinkedIn

• Akamai Technologies Website

• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

• PQShield Website

Want exclusive insights on quantum migration? Stay ahead of the curve. Subscribe to Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Podcasts.

✔ Get insider knowledge from leading cybersecurity experts.

✔ Learn practical steps to future-proof your organization.

✔ Stay updated on regulatory changes and industry trends.

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Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/

Post-quantum cryptography does not arrive as a clean replacement for today’s systems. It forces organizations to rethink how cryptography is designed, deployed, governed, and maintained over time. In this special episode of Shielded, host Jo Lintzen leads a discussion that moves past algorithm selection and into operational reality. The panel connects three pressures most organizations underestimate. Threats evolve quickly. Hardware and deployed systems last for years. Governance around cryptographic assets is often weak or incomplete.

Bill Buchanan explains how lattice-based cryptography enables new capabilities such as fully homomorphic encryption, where data remains encrypted even while being processed. This matters in modern environments shaped by cloud platforms, edge computing, and machine learning, where sensitive data is frequently exposed during computation.

Mamta Gupta highlights the growing mismatch between long hardware lifecycles and rapidly changing cryptographic requirements. Devices expected to remain in the field for a decade must soon meet post-quantum mandates, even as standards and certification frameworks continue to evolve. Locking in rigid choices today creates future risk.

Jeremy B focuses on the skills gap. Post-quantum migration requires experienced practitioners, structured discovery, and repeatable methods. Until those capabilities become widespread, organizations must treat PQC work as specialized and plan accordingly.

Adrian Neal delivers a warning about failure modes. New algorithms will not tolerate weak governance or poor implementation. The most dangerous outcome is silent failure, where systems appear secure but provide little real protection.

Yolanda Reid reframes the issue for leadership. This is not another Y2K-style event. Cryptography will continue changing for the lifetime of modern systems. Executives must understand the risk to their most valuable assets and support long-term operating models, not short-term fixes.

Bruno Couillard closes by challenging decades of assumptions. For thirty years, digital systems were built on the belief that cryptography should never change. That belief no longer holds. Security now depends on knowing what cryptography is used where, maintaining it continuously, and building teams capable of adapting as standards and threats evolve.

What You’ll Learn

• Why cybersecurity depends entirely on cryptography

• How post-quantum change reshapes security architecture

• Why encrypted processing matters in modern data systems

• How slow hardware lifecycles increase urgency

• Why crypto agility is now mandatory

• How weak governance undermines strong algorithms

• Why poor implementation can destroy security silently

• How discovery exposes real cryptographic risk

• Why post-quantum readiness is a leadership issue

• How organizations must plan for continuous change

Your Roadmap to Quantum Resilience

[00:00] Step 1: Cryptography Is the Real Security Boundary

Bruno Couillard opens with something that sounds obvious, but often gets ignored. There is no cybersecurity without cryptography. Everything else sits on top of it. When teams treat cryptography as background plumbing, they stop paying attention to where trust really comes from. Post-quantum work starts with knowing where cryptography shows up in your systems, why it was chosen, and what assumptions it depends on. If you don’t have that picture, every other security decision is built on guesswork.

[01:10] Step 2: Data Is Most Vulnerable While Being Used

Bill Buchanan points out a problem we’ve quietly accepted for years. We encrypt data when it’s stored and when it moves, but the moment we actually use it, we expose it. In cloud systems, analytics, and machine learning, that exposure happens all the time. Lattice-based cryptography changes what’s possible here. It allows data to stay encrypted even while being processed. That opens the door to systems that are private by design, not just protected at the edges.

[03:12] Step 3: Long Hardware Lifecycles Create Urgency

Mamta Gupta explains why timing is such a headache. Devices are built to last five, ten, sometimes fifteen years. Meanwhile, threats, regulations, and algorithms change every few months. If you wait too long, you end up with systems that can’t be upgraded in time. If you lock things down too early, you risk betting on choices that won’t age well. The hard part is planning for both at once.

[06:47] Step 4: Migration Is an Execution Problem, Not a Theory

Jeremy B brings the focus to execution. PQC migration starts with discovery, not replacement. Most organizations do not know where cryptography lives until they actively map certificates, keys, protocols, vendors, and dependencies. Assurance schemes and consultants help add structure and confidence, especially early on, but they do not remove ownership. Someone inside the organization still needs to understand what exists today and what can change safely.

[08:52] Step 5: Poor Implementation Destroys Security Quietly

Adrian Neal explains why post-quantum algorithms raise the stakes. Older schemes often failed loudly. New ones do not. Weak governance or poor implementation can result in encryption that appears to work but provides little real protection. Discovery often exposes unknown certificates, unmanaged keys, and policy drift. In a PQC world, those gaps matter more than ever. Algorithm strength means nothing without disciplined implementation.

[11:10] Step 6: This Is a Leadership Conversation, Not a Project

Yolanda Reid pulls the conversation out of IT and into the executive room. Post-quantum cryptography is not a one-time upgrade you fund, complete, and move past. Cryptography will keep changing for as long as digital systems exist. That puts core assets at stake, communications, financial systems, identity, and trust. Leaders need to understand that risk and back operating models built for continuous change, not short-term fixes.

Episode Resources

• Bruno Couillard on LinkedIn

• Bill Buchanan on LinkedIn

• Mamta Gupta on LinkedIn

• Adrian Neal on LinkedIn

• Yolanda Reid on LinkedIn

• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

• PQShield Website

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As post-quantum cryptography moves from theory into deployment, organizations need a clearer view of what is real today and what still requires time. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, Sofia Celi, Senior Cryptography and Security Researcher at Brave, breaks down the two-speed reality shaping PQC adoption. She explains why confidentiality is already protected at scale through TLS 1.3 and hybrid post-quantum key encapsulation, now used across major browsers, CDNs, and cloud providers to defend against harvest-now-decrypt-later threats. This shift is live, scaled, and part of today’s internet. However, authentication like signatures, PKI, eID systems, and privacy-preserving proofs remains early. Lattice-based signatures are large and costly, prompting NIST’s second call for signature schemes with new mathematical foundations and smaller communication sizes. Sofia’s work on MAYO, a compact multivariate signature scheme, offers a promising path for authentication, distributed signing, and environments where signature size matters. She also examines European digital identity plans, noting the gap between policy ambition and cryptographic readiness. Current timelines overlook the immaturity of zero-knowledge systems and the privacy risks hidden in their design. Sofia closes with two practical actions any organization can take now: migrate fully to TLS 1.3 and enable hybrid post-quantum key exchange. These steps strengthen confidentiality today while the ecosystem advances authentication.

What You’ll Learn

• Why PQC deployment for confidentiality is real and already scaled in production

• How TLS 1.3 and hybrid KEMs mitigate harvest-now-decrypt-later threats

• Why authentication and signatures lag far behind despite rapid standardization work

• How MAYO targets small keys, compact signatures, and natural threshold support

• Why multivariate signatures matter for algorithm diversity and future resilience

• How zero-knowledge proofs behave differently in practice and why they require caution

• Why 2027 digital identity timelines overlook both cryptographic maturity and privacy risks

• What makes threshold cryptography attractive for distributed signing and delegated trust

• Why the first PQC steps every organization must take are simple, available, and high impact

Sofia Celi is a Senior Cryptography and Security Researcher at Brave, where she focuses on practical deployment of privacy-preserving and post-quantum cryptography. Her work spans Private Information Retrieval (PIR), zero-knowledge proof integration, TLS attestation, and the real-world application of advanced cryptography beyond blockchain. She is a co-author of MAYO, a multivariate post-quantum signature scheme submitted to NIST’s second signature call, and has led efforts to bring privacy technologies such as PIR into production environments.

Sofia serves as WG/RG Chair and Ombudsperson at the IETF, where she co-chairs a working group shaping global post-quantum protocol standards. She is an IACR ePrint co-editor, a reviewer for BlackHat, a member of the Open Technology Fund Advisory Council, and previously worked as a Cryptography and Security Researcher at Cloudflare. Her career sits at the intersection of research, protocol design, and applied security, advancing cryptography from theory into widely deployed systems.

Your Roadmap to Quantum Resilience

[02:19] Step 1: Separate Confidentiality From Authentication -

Sofia starts by drawing a line that many teams still blur: the confidentiality layer is already post-quantum, but authentication is not. At this point in the ecosystem, TLS confidentiality is protected through deployed hybrid post-quantum KEMs across major browsers and cloud providers. The motivation is clear: harvest-now-decrypt-later is possible today, and traffic that leaks in the future cannot be recovered. Authentication is a different story. TLS signatures, PKI, and privacy-preserving protocols still rely on classical schemes because PQ signatures remain large, slow, or difficult to compose. Treating these two domains as if they mature simultaneously creates the wrong expectations and timelines. A realistic roadmap begins with clarity on what needs immediate protection and what will evolve over several years.

Key Question: Which systems depend on long-term signature trust, and which only require encrypted traffic today?

[04:42] Step 2: Treat Hybrid as a Transition but Recognize It May Stick -

Sofia discusses how the industry has already adopted hybrid KEMs, concatenating classical and PQ algorithms as a safety net. In theory, hybrid is temporary. In practice, she notes that once the industry migrates, many systems never fully transition again. We still see SHA-1 and TLS 1.2 in production for this exact reason. Hybrid provides resilience while researchers gain confidence in PQ schemes and watch for early attacks, but it also carries the risk of becoming the default state if teams do not set clear expectations. Proper planning requires acknowledging both realities: hybrid protects confidentiality today, but architecture leaders need a position on whether and when pure PQC becomes the long-term baseline.

Key Question: Is hybrid a waypoint in your roadmap, or is it quietly turning into your destination?

[08:29] Step 3: Use TLS 1.3 Migration Lessons to Avoid Delays in PQC Adoption -

Referencing the TLS 1.3 rollout, Sofia explains how long real migrations take. TLS 1.3 required years of review, formal verification, and protocol hardening before large-scale deployment. Even now, many systems still use TLS 1.2 or older, and the IETF cannot enforce upgrades. This matters because TLS 1.3 is the prerequisite for PQC handshakes. If organizations have not completed their TLS 1.3 migration, PQC adoption stalls before it begins. Sofia highlights that the industry can only move as fast as the slowest dependency, and outdated protocol infrastructure remains a major blocker.

Key Question: Do you know exactly where TLS 1.2 still runs in your environment, and is there a plan to eliminate it?

[14:36] Step 4: Track NIST’s Second Signature Round and Algorithm Diversity -

Sofia explains why NIST opened a second call for PQ signatures: current lattice-based options are not enough. They are large, sometimes costly, and place all trust in a single mathematical family. If lattices were broken, both PQ key exchange and signatures would fall together. NIST now seeks independent mathematical foundations and smaller signatures that fit real-world authentication workflows. This includes bandwidth-limited clients, certificate chains, and protocols where signature size directly affects performance.

Key Question: Are you planning for an authentication ecosystem built on diverse algorithms, or is your strategy unintentionally tied to a single class?

[17:21] Step 5: Evaluate Multivariate and Threshold-Friendly Signatures Such as MAYO -

Sofia introduces MAYO, a multivariate-quadratic signature scheme she co-authored. She details why the industry is watching multivariate candidates closely: they offer small public keys, compact signatures, and natural support for threshold cryptography. Threshold capability is particularly important as authentication workflows spread across distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and delegated trust relationships. Rather than placing full control of a private key in one location, threshold schemes allow multiple parties to collaborate on a signature without exposing a complete key.

Key Question: Which of your authentication paths would benefit from compact signatures and built-in support for shared signing authority?

[33:03] Step 6: Act Now on What Is Mature - TLS 1.3 and Hybrid PQC

Sofia focuses on the two upgrades every organization can deploy immediately without waiting for the authentication ecosystem to mature. First, migrate fully to TLS 1.3, which is already supported across all major libraries. Second, enable hybrid KEMs to protect confidentiality against stored-traffic attacks. Authentication, signatures, and zero-knowledge tools need more time, more validation, and more stable standards. But confidentiality can be defended today with minimal cost and operational friction. Sofia frames this not as future-proofing, but as reducing an active risk window that grows every day organizations delay action.

Key Question: Do you have a scheduled project to deploy TLS 1.3 and hybrid PQC across your primary communication paths in the next 12 months?

Episode Resources

• Sofia Celi on LinkedIn

• Brave Website

• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

• PQShield Website

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As quantum computing advances, organizations can no longer view post-quantum cryptography as a future project. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, Konstantinos Karagiannis, Director of Quantum Computing Services at Protiviti, lays out a practical and attacker-focused perspective on preparing for the quantum era. Konstantinos explains why the industry’s fixation on harvest-now-decrypt-later misses the most serious exposure: harvest-now-forge-later, where quantum capability targets the foundation of digital trust through attacks on code signing, software update channels, and blockchain consensus mechanisms. He introduces the emerging Five-Day Rule, informed by recent research indicating that a cryptographically relevant quantum machine could break RSA-2048 in roughly five days, reshaping assumptions about risk and timelines. The discussion expands to the potential instability of blockchain networks, such as proof-of-stake systems reliant on BLS signatures, and the broader implications for market integrity and digital identity. Konstantinos outlines the steps security leaders must take now: identify crown-jewel assets, conduct a full cryptographic inventory, evaluate exposure windows, and demand clear post-quantum plans from vendors. The lesson here is post-quantum migration is a core cyber resilience program that must begin immediately, supported by real posture measurement and actionable timelines.

What You’ll Learn:

• The difference between harvest-now-decrypt-later and harvest-now-forge-later

• Why code signing and supply-chain trust models are the most critical targets

• How the five-day rule reframes attacker capability planning

• Why blockchain & BLS signatures represent high-impact quantum risk

• Why cryptographically relevant machines will be operated by nation states and major crime rings

• How PQC migration aligns with existing cyber resilience practices

• Why crown jewel analysis and crypto inventory must start immediately

• How to evaluate vendors and avoid vague timelines

• Why PQC will become invisible infrastructure within the next few years

Konstantinos Karagiannis is the Director of Quantum Computing Services at Protiviti, where he leads efforts helping organizations develop real quantum use cases in optimization, machine learning, and simulation, and build realistic paths toward post-quantum cryptography migration. He has been with Protiviti for more than six years, serving previously as Associate Director of Quantum Computing Services. Before Protiviti, Konstantinos spent 13 years at BT, where he served as CTO of the Security Consulting Practice for BT Americas, and earlier as Global Technical Lead for Ethical Hacking, leading red-team operations and advanced cryptographic security testing.

He is the host of Protiviti’s “Post Quantum World” podcast, recently featured at DEFCON with his talk Post-Quantum Panic: When will the cracking begin, and can we detect it? His work focuses on building real quantum computing solutions today while preparing enterprises for the accelerating risks of Q-Day.

Your Roadmap to Quantum Resilience

[05:26] Step 1: Separate HNDL from HNFL -

Konstantinos reframes quantum risk by challenging the narrow industry focus on harvest-now-decrypt-later (HNDL). Decrypting old emails years from now is far less damaging than the real threat: harvest-now-forge-later (HNFL), where attackers use quantum capability to forge identities, break code-signing foundations, and compromise the software supply chain. This shifts the threat from exposure of data to the collapse of trust. When an attacker becomes the authoritative sender such as Microsoft, Apple, a firewall vendor, or a banking platform, the attack scales instantly, bypasses controls, and moves invisibly. This is not about curiosity or espionage; it is about control and reach, where one forged update compromises millions of systems in minutes.

Key Question: Where does your organization implicitly trust signed updates or machine identities, and who validates the integrity of that trust boundary today?

[07:34] Step 2: Apply the Five-Day Rule -

Konstantinos introduces what he calls the Five-Day Rule, based on recent research suggesting that a cryptographically relevant quantum computer could break RSA-2048 using roughly 1,399 logical qubits in around five days. This turns timelines from theoretical decades into an operational window that security and architecture teams must model now. Five days changes the logic of risk, pushing leaders to assess which secrets, keys, and operational identities remain valuable within that timeframe. Financial transactions may expire quickly, but the keys protecting critical infrastructure, identity infrastructures, government systems, long-life intellectual property, or blockchain consensus remain valuable long after they are created.

Key Question: If a key protecting your most sensitive systems could be broken in five days, what response tempo, controls, and contingency paths would you rely on?

[13:28] Step 3: Model Code-Signing Blast Radius -

In his offensive-security perspective, Konstatinos explains that attackers will go after code-signing keys and update channels first, because those are the levers that unlock systemic access. Compromising a single vendor’s signing key turns a routine software update into a global breach. Unlike decrypting a single intercepted email, forging an update affects entire fleets of devices at once, laptops, networking gear, operational systems, and cloud workloads. Supply-chain attacks such as SolarWinds and ShadowHammer demonstrated the scale of trust-based compromise without any quantum capability. Quantum only removes the barrier of needing privileged access. The blast radius is not linear; it grows exponentially.

Key Question: If a major vendor in your environment silently lost control of its signing key, which systems would accept the update without verification, and how quickly would you detect the first signal of compromise?

[16:27] Step 4: Include Blockchain and Market Stability -

Konstantinos expands the discussion beyond enterprise IT into blockchain and digital asset ecosystems. Vulnerable Bitcoin wallets using reused or exposed addresses could be drained by reversing private keys. More significantly, proof-of-stake networks such as Ethereum rely on BLS signatures to establish validator identity and consensus. Breaking those signatures enables attackers to hijack consensus, manipulate network governance, or destabilize price confidence. The consequences go far beyond theft. The damage includes global market volatility, reputational collapse, and loss of institutional trust. Even the credible announcement that such capability exists could move markets, without a full attack ever executing.

Key Question: Where is your organization exposed, directly or indirectly, to digital assets, transaction flows, or reputational dependence on market stability?

[30:53] Step 5: Turn Quantum Risk Into Cyber Resilience -

Konstantinos emphasises that preparing for post-quantum migration begins with security fundamentals: catalogue your cryptography, identify crown-jewel systems, evaluate exposure lifespans, and map relationships between systems, third parties, and identity flows. This reframes PQC from a cryptographic experiment into a disciplined cyber resilience program grounded in visibility and sequencing. Teams must understand what they protect, how long those assets remain valuable, and where control layers converge. This requires more than technical transition; it demands ownership, governance, and prioritisation. A successful roadmap depends on clarity of dependencies before cryptography is swapped.

Key Question: Can you produce a precise and current map of every key, certificate, algorithm, and dependency protecting your core services, and prioritise change based on exposure rather than convenience?

[33:27] Step 6: Demand Specifics from Vendors -

Third-party vendors are central to PQC readiness, but vague statements such as “investigating PQC” provide no protection. Konstatinos urges organizations to demand version-level commitments, timelines, supported PQC algorithms, and attestation paths. Roadmaps must include implementation dates, hybrid-mode support windows, and performance characteristics. Accountability now sits across the entire supply chain, and cryptographic dependencies extend far beyond internal engineering. This is a procurement, legal, and architectural negotiation that requires clarity and documentation, not aspiration. Silence is risk; specificity is control.

Key Question: Do your vendor agreements require measurable and dated PQC milestones, or do you rely on trust without validated evidence?

Episode Resources

• Konstantinos Karagiannis on LinkedIn

• Protiviti Website

• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

• PQShield Website

Want exclusive insights on quantum migration? Stay ahead of the curve. Subscribe to Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Podcasts.

✔ Get insider knowledge from leading cybersecurity experts.

✔ Learn practical steps to future-proof your organization.

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Quantum computing is coming faster than most organizations are ready for. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, Kevin Reifsteck, Director for Critical Infrastructure Protection at Microsoft, joins Jo Lintzen to unpack how Microsoft is building a coordinated roadmap toward quantum-safe security and why governments and enterprises must start acting now. Kevin explains how Microsoft’s Quantum Safe Program connects engineering, compliance, and policy under one strategy, with a clear commitment to deliver customer-ready capabilities by 2029 and complete the global transition by 2033. He shares how this plan balances scale with flexibility, empowering each product group to define its path while keeping the company aligned to a shared goal. He outlines why post-quantum migration must move beyond “code swaps” to address real-world complexities like data-center encryption, operational technology that runs for decades, and global interoperability. Kevin also highlights the role of government action, appointing accountable leaders, aligning regulations across borders, and prioritizing sectors such as healthcare and finance where long-term data protection is critical.

What You’ll Learn

How Microsoft’s Quantum Safe Program sets 2029 and 2033 milestones for migration readiness.

Why accountability and leadership drive progress more than technology alone.

How to identify and protect systems and data with long-term exposure risk.

Why global alignment through NIST, ISO, and IETF matters for interoperability.

How governments can accelerate national readiness through coordinated action.

Why post-quantum migration must include hardware, policy, and operations - not just software updates.

Practical first steps for organizations to begin their own quantum-safe transition today.

Kevin Reifsteck is the Director for Critical Infrastructure Protection at Microsoft, where he leads global strategy across cybersecurity policy, quantum-safe readiness, and public–private sector collaboration. His work bridges engineering and regulation, helping Microsoft’s product teams align with evolving post-quantum cryptography standards while advising governments on how to prioritize critical systems and national resilience. Before joining Microsoft, Kevin served as Director for Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity at the National Security Council, The White House, where he shaped U.S. policy for securing essential services and modernizing cyber risk management. Today, Kevin plays a central role in driving Microsoft’s Quantum Safe Program, which sets clear timelines for transitioning products and services to post-quantum cryptography and helping customers worldwide prepare for the quantum era. Known for his strategic clarity and cross-sector insight, he continues to champion global alignment, government readiness, and responsible innovation in securing the foundations of the digital world.

Your Roadmap to Quantum Resilience

[01:25] Step 1: Set Accountability and Direction –
Every successful migration begins with ownership. Kevin explains how Microsoft anchored its transition by naming accountable leaders and setting measurable goals across its entire product ecosystem. The company’s Quantum Safe Program unites engineering, policy, and compliance within one vision, ensuring that strategy translates into coordinated action. Each product group defines its own plan within shared milestones, creating focus without friction. This balance of central direction and local execution allows a company as large as Microsoft to move with precision. Leadership commitment is the engine that turns post-quantum awareness into measurable progress.

Key Question: Who owns your quantum-safe migration, and what milestones define success?

[04:29] Step 2: Establish a Timeline Customers Can Trust –

Microsoft’s roadmap defines clear signposts: customer-facing capabilities by 2029 and full transition across products and services by 2033. These dates are not abstract; they give structure to engineering priorities, regulatory engagement, and customer planning cycles. Kevin shares that transparency in scheduling helps align suppliers, cloud partners, and governments around a shared sense of urgency. It signals that the migration window is already open, and that early action reduces future cost and complexity. By publishing its timelines, Microsoft creates both accountability and confidence within the broader ecosystem. Timelines build trust, and trust accelerates adoption.

Key Question: Have you defined a clear migration timeline that aligns your teams, vendors, and customers?

[07:29] Step 3: Make Policy an Enabler, Not a Barrier –

Governments set the tempo of readiness. Kevin emphasizes that effective policy should create alignment, not administrative drag. Microsoft advocates for each nation to name a responsible authority, establish a post-quantum plan within its national cybersecurity strategy, and allocate the resources to act on it. Awareness programs and sector-specific guidance can turn compliance from a burden into an accelerator, especially for industries like healthcare and energy where expertise is scarce. The key is partnership; policymakers and private industry moving in rhythm toward the same standards and timelines. Well-crafted regulation builds the runway for secure innovation.

Key Question: How can your policy environment encourage rather than slow down quantum-safe adoption?

[09:26] Step 4: Move Beyond the “Algorithm Swap” Mindset –

True migration reaches beyond code. Kevin outlines how large-scale infrastructures rely on encryption embedded deep within hardware, network layers, and operational systems that may run for decades. In cloud environments, encryption depends on specialized chips, data flow, and power efficiency, all of which must adapt to larger keys and new computational demands. In critical infrastructure, replacing or reconfiguring operational technology requires careful planning and years of lead time. Treating PQC as a systemic evolution ensures that migration strengthens, rather than disrupts, core services. Preparation today prevents technical and operational lock-in tomorrow.

Key Question: Which parts of your infrastructure demand more than a code update to achieve quantum resilience?

[12:32] Step 5: Protect Long-Lived Data and Systems –

Some data loses value in weeks; other data must stay confidential for decades. Kevin draws attention to sectors where this matters most: finance, healthcare, and government, where exposure to “harvest-now, decrypt-later” attacks could have generational consequences. The first step is to identify which assets would still cause harm if exposed ten or fifteen years from now. Protecting those systems early not only reduces risk but avoids future regulatory and operational strain. Microsoft’s guidance encourages leaders to focus first on the information and services that define their long-term trust relationship with customers. Longevity determines priority in the quantum transition.

Key Question: Which information or systems in your organization will still matter a decade from now?

[14:50] Step 6: Align Through Global Standards –

Quantum resilience depends on collaboration that crosses borders. Kevin explains how Microsoft works within NIST, ISO, and IETF to ensure that algorithms and protocols mature together, preventing regional fragmentation that could slow the entire ecosystem. When nations align on standards, organizations can innovate confidently, knowing their systems will interoperate securely worldwide. The goal is a consistent framework that supports both national security and commercial continuity. Alignment builds momentum, and momentum ensures no critical infrastructure is left behind. The post-quantum era will reward those who plan globally and execute locally.

Key Question: How well are your systems and partners aligned with emerging global post-quantum standards?

Episode Resources

• Kevin Reifsteck on LinkedIn

• Microsoft Website

• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

• PQShield Website

Want exclusive insights on quantum migration?

Stay ahead of the curve. Subscribe to Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Podcasts.

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As quantum computing advances, organisations can no longer treat hardware migration as a secondary task. Thalia Laing, Principal Cryptographer at HP Security Lab, explains how HP adopted a hardware-first approach to post-quantum security by launching the world’s first quantum-safe Secure Boot for business PCs ahead of NIST standards. She describes how HP integrated hybrid RSA + LMS signatures to preserve certification assurance and user performance while adding quantum-safe protection at power-on. Thalia outlines the operational design behind LMS state management, parameter selection, and cross-team testing to ensure verification speed and long-term reliability. She details why many enterprises overlook hardware-implemented cryptography in their inventories and how this blind spot undermines migration plans. She highlights how securing firmware integrity extends device lifespan and builds measurable confidence across product lines. The discussion reinforces that protecting the hardware root of trust is the first step toward true post-quantum resilience.

What You’ll Learn:

• How HP built quantum-safe Secure Boot into production PCs before PQC standards were finalised.

• Why hybrid RSA + LMS signatures bridge certification and quantum resilience.

• How LMS state and parameters are managed for predictable, verifiable signing.

• Why hardware-level cryptography must be included in every crypto inventory.

• How securing firmware integrity extends device lifetime and compliance value.

• How to prioritise long-lived, hard-to-update products in PQC migration plans.

• Why crypto agility begins in design, not deployment.

• Why starting with the hardware root of trust reduces cost, risk, and time pressure later.

Thalia Laing is the Principal Cryptographer and Security Researcher at HP Security Lab, where she leads research and implementation initiatives in post-quantum cryptography, hardware-based security, and trusted computing. She has played a key role in HP’s development of quantum-safe Secure Boot for business PCs and printers, integrating hybrid RSA + LMS architectures that strengthen firmware integrity and protect devices throughout their lifecycle. Over nearly eight years at HP, she has contributed to advancing cryptographic standards, security innovation, and enterprise readiness for the quantum era.

Thalia holds a PhD in Cyber Security from Royal Holloway, University of London, where her research on enhanced threshold schemes explored the balance between security and efficiency in distributed cryptographic systems. A member of the NIST NCCoE Migration to PQC Project, she continues to collaborate across industry and academia to accelerate the adoption of quantum-resistant security technologies. Known for her rigour and clarity in applying cryptography to real-world engineering, Thalia focuses on designing security foundations that endure across generations of hardware and emerging post-quantum standards.

Your Roadmap to Quantum Resilience

[05:58] Step 1: Protect the Root of Trust First –

Quantum resilience begins where trust begins, which is in hardware. Thalia explains why HP started its post-quantum journey by redesigning the Secure Boot process, the first code executed when a device powers on. This verification chain is baked into silicon and cannot be patched in the field, making it the single most critical layer to protect against future quantum attacks. By introducing quantum-safe verification at this immutable level, HP ensured that even if traditional cryptography were compromised, the foundation of every PC would remain secure. The result is a hardware-anchored assurance model that outlasts software cycles and supports long-term device integrity.

Key Question: Which hardware-anchored components in your systems would compromise everything if their signatures failed?

[08:58] Step 2: Combine Proven and Post-Quantum Assurance –

Migration to post-quantum cryptography doesn’t mean abandoning what already works. HP adopted a hybrid RSA + LMS model to secure its business PCs, combining the certification maturity of RSA with the forward security of LMS. Both signatures must verify before a device will boot, and a nested design ensures consistency: the firmware is first signed with LMS, then the firmware and LMS signature are signed again with RSA. This dual chain preserves compatibility for existing customers while introducing quantum-safe protection seamlessly. It also satisfies regional and industry assurance requirements, an essential bridge between today’s standards and tomorrow’s mandates.

Key Question: Where could a hybrid model strengthen your cryptographic assurance without disrupting certification or performance?

[11:53] Step 3: Manage LMS with Precision and Predictability –

LMS is powerful but operationally demanding. Thalia outlines how HP engineered its signing infrastructure to prevent state reuse, manage signature limits, and tune the Winternitz parameter, a key setting that trades verification speed for computational effort. Because firmware signing happens predictably and infrequently, HP could model the entire lifecycle of each key, ensuring that verification remains fast and the state never exhausts. Extensive cross-testing between the signing infrastructure and endpoint firmware teams helped find the optimal balance between performance and endurance. The result is a proven framework for implementing post-quantum signatures in live production environments.

Key Question: Have you built the operational discipline to manage state, limits, and parameters before scaling PQC deployments?

[21:16] Step 4: Close the Hardware Inventory Gap –

Visibility drives every successful migration, yet most crypto inventories overlook what’s embedded in hardware. Thalia emphasises that many scanning tools capture software libraries and network protocols but miss firmware-level cryptography entirely. Secure Boot keys, embedded verification logic, and hardware root certificates often sit outside conventional monitoring systems. HP encourages organisations to supplement automated scans with manual verification and vendor collaboration to document these hidden elements. Only by mapping cryptography end-to-end, from cloud to chip, can enterprises manage risk and sequence migration effectively.

Key Question: Does your cryptographic inventory capture the unseen hardware roots that define your trust boundary?

[25:32] Step 5: Build for Physical Resilience –

Quantum safety is only part of the equation, physical resilience completes it. Thalia explains how HP integrates side-channel and fault-injection protections into hardware designs, preventing attackers from bypassing verification steps or manipulating power and timing behaviour. Since such defences cannot be retrofitted after deployment, they must be planned at the design phase alongside cryptographic migration. The goal is not just mathematical security but operational assurance, devices that remain trustworthy even under physical access or lab-level attack.

Key Question: How aligned are your hardware-level countermeasures with the cryptographic strength you rely on?

[18:21] Step 6: Prioritise Long-Lived, Hard-to-Update Devices –

Every device has a lifespan; cryptography often does not. HP’s migration strategy focuses on hardware that will remain in service for years, business PCs, printers, and embedded peripherals. By upgrading these devices first, HP reduces exposure to the “harvest now, decrypt later” threat and avoids expensive retrofits when new standards become mandatory. Thalia calls this “future-proofing at the factory”: designing security that endures as algorithms evolve and threats mature. Prioritising longevity over convenience transforms security investment into measurable business value.

Key Question: Which products in your portfolio will still be operational when quantum attacks become real, and are they ready today?

Episode Resources

• Thalia Laing on LinkedIn

• HP Website

• Johannes Lintzen on LinkedIn

• PQShield Website

Want exclusive insights on quantum migration? Stay ahead of the curve. Subscribe to Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Podcasts.

✔ Get insider knowledge from leading cybersecurity experts.

✔ Learn practical steps to future-proof your organization.

✔ Stay updated on regulatory changes and industry trends.

Need help subscribing? Click here for step-by-step instructions.

Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense is handcrafted by our friends over at: https://www.fame.so/