CORE PRODUCT / 03
Post-Quantum Protection for Long-Lived Mission Data
Long-term cryptographic survivability. Protect data whose sensitivity outlives today's cryptography.
Cyber survivability includes protecting data whose sensitivity outlives the cryptography protecting it today. The classical key exchanges in use now are not durable assets. Lattix PQE treats the encryption boundary as something that must survive a future quantum capability, not merely the threats visible at the moment of encryption.
Harvest Now, Decrypt Later
Collection Today
Adversaries capture encrypted traffic and exfiltrate encrypted archives now, with no ability to read them. The data is stored against a future date when a cryptographically relevant quantum computer can break the RSA and elliptic curve key exchanges that protected it. Intelligence agencies have confirmed that state actors are already stockpiling encrypted data for this purpose.
Decryption Later
Quantum computers capable of breaking RSA and ECC are projected within the next decade, and nation-state programs are working to accelerate that timeline. When that capability arrives, every classically encrypted record collected in the intervening years becomes readable in retrospect. The exposure is retroactive, so the decision to act cannot wait for the threat to materialize.
Why Long-Lived Data Is The Target
The risk concentrates on data whose value persists for years or decades. Classified material, financial records, healthcare data, and long-lived intellectual property all retain sensitivity well past the point where today's key exchanges can be trusted. For these classes the relevant question is not whether the data is protected now, but whether it remains protected against decryption attempted years from now.
ML-KEM-768, Standardized and Deployed Today
PQE uses ML-KEM (Module-Lattice Key Encapsulation Mechanism), the primary post-quantum key encapsulation standard NIST published in 2024. The ML-KEM-768 parameter set provides 256-bit equivalent security with key generation, encapsulation, and decapsulation operations efficient enough for high-throughput enterprise environments. Encryption is applied at the data layer, so no application code or user workflow has to change to adopt it.
During the transition from classical to post-quantum cryptography, PQE supports a hybrid mode that pairs ML-KEM with an established algorithm such as X25519. The shared secret is derived from both exchanges, so an attacker has to break both to recover the key. This preserves backward compatibility with classical peers while adding quantum resistance, and it hedges against the residual risk that a new analysis exposes a weakness in a relatively young post-quantum algorithm. If that happens, the classical layer continues to provide protection rather than leaving the data exposed.
WHY TWO LAYERS
- An attacker must defeat both the lattice-based and the classical exchange to recover a single key.
- A future weakness in the post-quantum algorithm degrades to classical security rather than to none.
- Classical peers that have not yet migrated remain interoperable through the transition window.
- Crypto agility lets the algorithm set advance as standards evolve, without re-architecting the data layer.
Centralized Control, Distributed Enforcement
PQE separates where key policy is defined from where it is enforced. Security teams author key policy from a single control plane, while keys are enforced at every node in the infrastructure. This keeps governance coherent without creating a central chokepoint that enforcement depends on.
HSM-Backed Roots
Hardware security module integration ensures that master keys never exist in plaintext outside a tamper-resistant hardware boundary. The keys that anchor the rest of the hierarchy are generated and used inside the HSM, so a compromise of surrounding infrastructure does not expose them.
Automated Rotation
Key rotation runs on configurable schedules with zero-downtime transitions. Data is re-encrypted in the background without disrupting active workloads, which means rotation can be frequent enough to limit the blast radius of any single key without imposing an operational cost that discourages it.
FIPS 140-3 Validation
All cryptographic modules are FIPS 140-3 validated, meeting the federal standard for cryptographic implementation. Validation covers the module boundary in which both the post-quantum and classical operations run, so the hybrid construction inherits the same assurance level.
Multi-Tenant Isolation
The key management system supports multi-tenant isolation, maintaining cryptographic separation between organizational units. Managed service providers and large enterprises can give each tenant an independent key hierarchy under one control plane, so a key event in one tenant does not reach another.
Protection Across Every State
Long-lived and regulated data is exposed in more than one state, and protection that covers only one of them leaves a window an adversary can collect against. PQE applies quantum-resistant protection to data at rest, in transit, and during processing so the encryption boundary holds through the full lifecycle.
Mission Profiles With Long Retention
PQE is built for the data classes whose value and obligation to protect extend well beyond the lifespan of current cryptography. In each of these profiles, the cost of retroactive decryption is borne years after the data was created.
Long-Term Classified Data
Classified material carries handling obligations that span decades. Encrypting it under quantum-resistant algorithms today protects it against a future capability that would otherwise expose the full retention window in retrospect.
Financial Transaction Security
Transaction records and the secrets that protect them retain value long after settlement. Quantum-resistant encryption keeps captured traffic and stored records from becoming readable once classical key exchanges no longer hold.
Healthcare Records Encryption
Patient records are sensitive for a lifetime and are subject to long retention requirements. Protecting them now closes the gap between a record's lifespan and the durability of the cryptography defending it.
Critical Infrastructure Communications
Control-system and operational communications can reveal exploitable detail long after they occur. Hybrid quantum-resistant exchange protects this traffic against collection aimed at later decryption.
PQE is built on standardized post-quantum cryptography and validated cryptographic modules, so the protection it provides maps to the federal and national frameworks that govern long-lived sensitive data. Data encrypted under PQE is designed to remain trusted regardless of future advances in quantum capability.
Encrypt for the Threat That Has Not Arrived Yet
See how Lattix PQE applies NIST-standardized post-quantum encryption and hybrid key exchange to the data you need to protect for the long term. The decision to act precedes the capability that makes it necessary.