Commercial, fault-tolerant quantum computing may be closer than it appears, with significant advancements being made by major vendors like
Microsoft,
Google, and
IBM and pure-play companies, from
Rigetti to
Quantinuum to
D-Wave.
When it comes, quantum computing will be able to rapidly solve problems that are too complex for even the most powerful of today’s supercomputers. It will accelerate advancements in fields from healthcare and pharmaceuticals to AI, energy, logistics, and finance.
It will also likely break modern encryption methods, such as RSA and ECC, which is driving the years-long push for vendors to
develop post-quantum cryptography algorithms, tools, and services now and for enterprise security teams, MSSPs, and other service providers to adopt them.
A growing number of vendors and service providers are
rolling out such offerings.
Tony De Bos, vice president of security and resiliency at enterprise technology services provider
Kyndryl, told MSSP Alert, “Fault-tolerant quantum computing could redefine cybersecurity as we know it. Encryption, once thought to be unbreakable, may soon be obsolete. ... As digital services and systems become increasingly pervasive and interconnected, transacting and processing more sensitive data, that complexity amplifies exposure and drives the need for focused, incremental action.”
Addressing Future Risks Now
Last week, Kyndryl released its Quantum Safe Assessment service to help enterprises prepare simultaneously for the upcoming opportunities that quantum computing will bring and the security threats it will pose.
Through the service, organizations will be able to identify and analyze how exposed their IT environments are to cryptographic risks and create a roadmap for transitioning to a quantum-safe status through post-quantum cryptography.
The assessment covers systems and third-party interfaces that are at risk, including payment gateways, customer databases, cloud infrastructure, and mainframe systems. The risks are prioritized based on the sensitivity of the data and the timeline of quantum threats.
The service helps enterprises create a Cryptographic Bill of Materials (CBOM) to see where encryption is used, evaluate which business services are most important to protect and most vulnerable to quantum-based attacks, develop a phased plan for adopting new encryption standards, and integrate the quantum-readiness efforts with Kyndryl’s Zero Trust Adoption Framework for stronger identity, endpoint, network, and data protection.
Threat of 'Harvest Now, Decrypt Later'
A key benefit of the service is addressing what De Bos said is a paradox found in the
2025 Kyndryl Readiness Report, in which a high percentage of executives said their cybersecurity was strong, while only 39% said they were ready for future technologies. In addition, only 4% said they see quantum as the technology that will have the greatest impact on their business in the next three years, which he said underscores the need for proactive preparation.
De Bos pointed to the threat of “
harvest now, decrypt later,” which he said “creates a ticking cryptographic time bomb” and is central to Kyndryl’s approach. For years, security researchers have warned that bad actors are stealing large amounts of encrypted data and holding onto it until they can use quantum systems in the future to decrypt it.
Modern encryption techniques like RSA, ECC, and DSA rely on mathematical problems that are too complex for today’s computers to efficiently solve.
“Quantum computers, however, could solve these problems rapidly using specialized techniques such as Shor’s Algorithm, making these widely used encryption methods vulnerable in a post-quantum world,”
Rich Dubose and
Mohan Madhvapathy Rao, senior product managers with Hashicorp,
wrote in a blog post. “So, attackers don’t need to understand or decrypt your data right now. They just need to capture and store it, waiting for the day quantum computing catches up.”
MSSPs Central to Strategy
Kyndryl’s De Bos said that “on a strategic level, our initial advice to customers is that invisible risks cannot be managed. Kyndryl’s Quantum Safe Assessment helps organizations proactively identify where their critical and sensitive data is most at risk, prioritize vulnerabilities, and build a step-by-step roadmap to quantum-safe security.”
A key part of any post-quantum cryptography strategy will
need to involve MSPs and MSSPs, like Kyndryl, he said.
Such service providers are “critical partners in helping organizations prepare for quantum and other emerging threats. Kyndryl collaborates with organizations to advise them on how to define processes and adopt technologies that enable quantum-safe security. By working together, we can accelerate readiness, address cyber challenges, and help businesses stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape.”
