CISA Post-Quantum Cryptography Initiative
- Issuer
- Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency(CISA)
- Effective date
- Sep 1, 2022
- Published date
- Sep 1, 2022
- Full text
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Summary
CISA's Post-Quantum Cryptography Initiative provides guidance, tooling, and resources to help federal agencies and critical infrastructure operators assess quantum risk and migrate to post-quantum cryptography. It includes the PQC Roadmap, sector-specific guidance, and collaboration with NSA and NIST on transition planning. CISA also operates the PQC Coalition to share threat intelligence and migration best practices with the private sector.
PKI impact
CISA guidance targets critical infrastructure operators whose TLS/SSL endpoints, signing systems, and device certificate infrastructure are exposed to harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks from nation-state adversaries. Deadlines are advisory rather than statutory, but the threat profile of CI sectors — including OT/ICS environments with long device lifecycles — makes delay operationally risky.
Migration hints
- Use CISA's free cryptographic discovery tooling and sector-specific PQC migration guides available at cisa.gov/quantum to bootstrap the inventory process.
- Prioritize TLS/SSL certificates on OT/IT boundary systems and remote-access endpoints most exposed to long-term adversarial traffic collection.
- For Device/IoT certificate infrastructure, assess certificate lifecycle management systems early — OT devices often have multi-decade operational lifetimes that will outlast classical algorithm security.
- Implement cryptographic agility in new certificate deployments so key material and algorithms can be replaced without full system redesign.
- Coordinate with your sector ISAC to benchmark your migration timeline against peer organizations and share lessons from cryptographic inventory exercises.
Milestones (2)
| Deadline | Label | Type | Hard | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 31, 2024 | Critical infrastructure sectors: complete PQC readiness assessment | Inventory | CISA urged critical infrastructure operators to complete quantum risk assessments and cryptographic inventories by end of 2024. This is a recommendation, not a statutory deadline. | |
| Dec 31, 2026 | Critical infrastructure: begin PQC migration in highest-risk systems | Begin Migration | CISA recommends that critical infrastructure operators begin active PQC migration in priority systems by end of 2026. This is a recommendation, not a statutory deadline. |
Algorithm references (3)
- ML-KEMFIPS 203Recommended
Replaces: RSA, ECDH
CISA recommends adoption of FIPS 203 (ML-KEM) for key encapsulation in critical infrastructure systems.
- ML-DSAFIPS 204Recommended
Replaces: RSA, ECDSA
CISA recommends adoption of FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) for digital signatures in critical infrastructure systems.
- SLH-DSAFIPS 205Recommended
Replaces: RSA, ECDSA
CISA recommends FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA) as an alternative signature scheme, especially for code signing and firmware.
Changelog (3)
| Date | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 1, 2025 | Clarification | CISA updated PQC guidance to reflect finalization of FIPS 206 (FN-DSA) and NIST IR 8547, reinforcing sector-specific migration timelines for critical infrastructure operators. |
| Aug 13, 2024 | Clarification | CISA updated guidance to reflect publication of FIPS 203, 204, and 205 by NIST, recommending immediate planning for adoption of finalized standards. |
| Sep 1, 2022 | New | CISA launched its PQC Initiative website and roadmap, establishing a central hub for federal and critical infrastructure PQC migration resources. |
Issuer
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security AgencyCISA
Type: GOVERNMENT
Region: US