The Post-Quantum Future with Robert Hann, Global Sales VP at Entrust

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:00) Today, we're talking to Robert from Entrust about the future post-quantum landscape. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:13) I like technology. My background was engineering till the podcast happened, and I heard that we had an opportunity to talk a little bit about the post-quantum readiness. And I was thinking, what does that mean? Does that mean how do we design our systems not to get attacked by quantum computers? And that was where I kind of left it. And I said, I'll just get on the call and ask Robert. So what is post-quantum readiness?

(Robert at 00:00:39) Well, you've just mentioned that you're an engineer. So am I. Not an IT engineer, but with engineering backgrounds, we probably understand maths better than many. And cryptography is maths. And maths is what we care about when we're thinking about algorithms and limits of keys and cryptography and encryption keys and all of that. It's all, that's behind it, is maths. Now, quantum computers can do maths far quicker than computers today, which renders the current algorithms that we use vulnerable. Well, vulnerable—in other words, completely smashes them. So many of these algorithms that we rely on across our whole IT landscapes, I mean, they've been around since the '90s, and they've matured like good wine. They get attacked, they get peer reviews, and algorithms get better and better with age. Meaning the more use they get and therefore are not broken, the more confidence everyone has in them. So we're about to enter a phase where all of a sudden, and we're not exactly sure when, when quantum computers become part of our daily lives or fall into the wrong hands, all that cryptography that we rely on across our IT will be broken. That's public key encryption. So post-quantum cryptography are quantum computer-resistant algorithms. So these are newer algorithms that have been designed to be resistant to quantum computers. No one can ever claim that an algorithm is totally safe because you can't foresee the future. You can't foresee the cleverness of a new attack or the way AI can be used to accelerate the process of attack, shortening the time it takes to deliver, execute an attack. We can't imagine yet what AI or even quantum computers could perhaps come up with. But for now, we know that the current public key encryption will be vulnerable, and therefore we need to replace it, migrate to new cryptography based on the quantum-resistant algorithms. That's what it's all about.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:27) How long do we have?

(Robert at 00:03:29) That's a brilliant question. It's a question that is foxing the best minds in the world right now because we can look at the quantum developers, the IBMs, the Googles, the Microsofts, and we can look at their acceleration of development, the breakthroughs they're making. You know, right now, IBM have got a quantum computer with 433 qubits. That's a really small computer by general purpose computing standards. We need quantum computers with thousands of qubits. So when we ask ourselves how long do we have, well, some people are saying the most pessimistic are saying it's a generation away. The most aggressive predictions are still within this decade, like 2028, 2027. The average across all of the experts is probably around the end of the decade, maybe just after it, when we reach the point where quantum computers are essentially mainstream. That's how long we have in the commercial world. When you start looking at military and intelligence, you've got other factors. You have state actors that are developing that perhaps already using quantum computers. Maybe small ones, we don't know. They may be a lot bigger than we're hearing about. And therefore, you've got to assess that risk. If we think commercially it's end of the decade, but there could be people faster than that, then we kind of have to plan for our security before when we think it is because you don't want to wait till the last minute. And it really also, the other fact around the migration is the scale of the change. I mean, it's wholesale. All this public key encryption that we use across our IT landscapes, in our web browsers, in our mobile phones, in our desktops, in our servers applications, in our connected cars, in our wind farms, you know, everything that has a CPU uses public key encryption cryptography. Therefore, there's a lot to change. So if with that scale of change and with a less predictable time frame, cautious people in the world will be saying, best start now. Let's at least start preparing for how big this change is, and how am I going to tackle it?

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:25) So will the operating systems start shipping with a quantum-resistant public key system, or how will that play out?

(Robert at 00:06:34) Well, again, it's a great question because, for those in the know, they understand that cryptography lives at all layers in the stack. The chip itself, BIOS, uses cryptography, the operating system, the applications that run on the operating system, the networks that connect to the computer, the server, whatever it is, the device. All those things are using public key cryptography. So it's not a matter of changing one because it instantly becomes incompatible with all the other parts of the stack. Cryptography is a bit like, it's really an ecosystem of compatibility. So you need all layers in the stack to support the same algorithm. Ideally, obviously, at the same time because they talk to each other. And because of that complexity, it really isn't a matter of clicking a switch and saying, right, switch to post-quantum. You have to implement it at all layers in the stack, check the compatibility, check the performance of the resulting ecosystem, because some of these algorithms that are coming are heavier weight. They use bigger keys. They create bigger hashes. That puts more stress on the computers. And these aren't quantum computers. This is quantum-resistant cryptography running on the computers we have today because we're not suddenly going to eradicate all of our classical computing and replace with quantum. That will take years and years and years. And you may not need one to or need to or could afford to. So there's so many factors in the process of change, the planning for the change that I'm seeing many organizations kind of underestimating the size of the problem that's coming.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:50) Who's going to be the one that drives the change? Is it going to be the chip makers at the lowest level?

(Robert at 00:08:55) Well, they're already creating chips with these new algorithms. So let me take a quick step back. So the new algorithms have been the result of a NIST competition, the National Institute of Standards and Technology in America. So they have been operating a competition and I believe it started with 78 mathematicians submitting candidate algorithms way back in 2015, 2016. So this isn't kind of a new thing. This has been going on for seven, eight years. And we're now in 2022 and '23 seeing the outcomes, the output of that process of testing, peer review. And we ended up, for example, there are four candidate algorithms for public key encryption that were published last July by NIST. Those are the algorithms that you choose from if you need to do public key cryptography. You have a choice of four and they have their pros and cons. Some of them will be good for some use cases, some others will be better for other use cases. And as I mentioned, algorithms can be heavier weight. They can require more processing power. So if we take an example of a connected car, a car is manufactured with up to what I'm assuming a thousand CPUs. Some of them, the most modern electric cars have that many chips in. Every one of those chips is, well, most of those chips is limited in computing power. So there's only some of those candidate algorithms you can use on them. The chip manufacturers that, say, supply the automotive companies are predicting that they'll start releasing post-quantum crypto supporting chips sometime next year, maybe 2025. So right now, cars are coming off production lines hard coded with classical cryptography. So that's one sector that really are having now to think very hard about how do they protect those cars that are being produced with, let's call them pre-quantum chips. They have to work out other ways of mitigating the risk in five, ten years' time because a car is going to be on the road for 20 years. There are other industries that have a similar challenge with long-term devices, long-term data. One of the immediate threats that organizations are having to tackle is what's called harvest now, decrypt later. Sounds very complex. I mean, what it is is, my information, Robert Hann, is my personal data, my Social Security number, my medical records and everything else. That's as valuable in ten years as it is today. So if you steal it encrypted today, if you're patient enough, you can decrypt it when you can get your hands on a quantum computer in a few years' time. So harvest now, be patient, decrypt later. And there are many industries, in fact arguably every company in the world that holds HR records is susceptible to harvest now, decrypt later. Obviously the targets are going to be the bigger organizations with a larger number of employees, bigger aggregations of personal data. But there are other industries too. If you think about healthcare, government, public sector, public sector holds records on me and you for our entire lives and more, you know, a few years after. And those healthcare records are worth ten times as much than credit card data on the dark web. So public sector actually have one of the biggest quantum problems or harvest now, decrypt later problems because their data is that valuable for identity fraud, healthcare fraud, VAT fraud, you know. So public sector's one of them. Insurance, banking, they hold data for a long time. I've had my bank account for 20 years. Don't tell my bank, but I don't intend to change.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:53) We'll keep them on their toes.

(Robert at 00:13:54) Yeah. Please keep them on their toes. So I'm likely to have the same bank account in ten years' time. They hold loads of information on me for the last 20 years of transactions and everything else about me, my maybe my mortgage and my dependents and everything. So there's another industry with a harvest now, decrypt later challenge that you really have to be thinking about today because that data, even if you have encrypted it, you followed best practice, zero trust, you've made sure your data at rest, in transit, in use is all encrypted and protected. If it's protected by public key encryption, which it probably is in a lot of cases, you have a problem.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:47) Is this the main focus of Entrust? I saw you had north of several thousand employees. Is this the only thing you do, or do you do other things as well?

(Robert at 00:14:56) We do a lot. I mean, our portfolio is incredible, really. We touch many parts of everyone's lives. So your wallet will be full of cards printed and personalized on Entrust equipment. You wouldn't know that. I mean, the personalization process is an electronic software-driven process. Obviously, the physical printing is a physical printer and all the security features built into the card were created on Entrust equipment or most of them. So there's one area that Entrust is touching your life. Other areas, if you travel, you go through an airport, you may receive a digital travel credential which has been personalized and issued using Entrust software and issuing software. And things you may be using elements of our biometric capabilities within that to provide what we call safe and seamless travel. You know, almost walking through an airport and checking in as you walk through it. Not, you know, no turnstiles, no gates, and, you know, that's kind of—

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:13) No security. Yeah, they've already zapped us before.

(Robert at 00:16:16) Security, but it's not, it's not pervasive. So there's another area that we operate in. We operate very much in enterprise security, cybersecurity, you know, locking into your bank, getting through the door into your office, locking onto your computer using your smartphone or using passwordless capability allows you to do in a really slick way. I mean, I'll give you a great example. One of the COVID hospitals in the UK used passwordless because they can't, they use kiosks, PCs, many doctors and nurses in a clinical area. You can't be putting cards into readers or one-time codes and things. You've got to, it's got to be seamless. You may be in an emergency. So you walk up to the computer and you get logged on. You walk away, and that's because you're carrying a very smart credential on your device and Bluetooth and everything is being used securely to lock you on. There's so many aspects in our lives that we may not realize, you know, Entrust is kind of behind it. It's delivering the security.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:36) And how did you get involved in the post-quantum readiness part of Entrust? Were you already at Entrust, or did you come from somewhere else? How did that work?

(Robert at 00:17:43) So I ran a company with a few others which Entrust acquired a few years ago, and we were a managed cryptography company in the UK. Interestingly, we operated from a military armory building with no windows. It's part of our data center infrastructure at Entrust, of course, now. It was where they filmed Star Wars, not in our facility.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:13) We'll say that, we'll say that, yeah.

(Robert at 00:18:15) Well, it was just over the hill. So the ex-missile silos was the Battlestar base in the latest Star Wars film.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:28) Oh, so cool.

(Robert at 00:18:28) And, you know, people were flying drones over the top. But I'm giving you a picture here of a highly secure facility. And it's that kind of security that's critical when you're dealing with, you know, national security of data, of issuing passports, of protecting national IDs, protecting citizens, protecting banking customers or just protecting the data of an enterprise that, you know, you work for of all different types from all different sectors. So I came from there, and I kind of grew up with cryptography in my veins. I loved the mathematics of it and I loved the engineering side of it, and I kind of, as we all do, fall into a role which was a managed cryptography company. But way back when I was in the payments and banking, bank cards industry. But it's very similar. All these things are built on trust. You know, cryptography is there to give you trust, to give, you know, me the confidence to continue banking with who I bank with or me as a customer to give confidence of sharing my data and I'm sharing it with a legitimate company that's going to take care of it or me as a government and protecting, providing that confidence and trust. And really often very much at the kernel of that is cryptography. And that's what gets me up in the morning. You know, making a difference to so many people's lives, and they may not even realize it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:16) How will we know when this has happened? So you've got different niches, different segments of the market pushing the technology forward for a variety of reasons. Like, I don't have a lot of experience here. I definitely don't have a lot of experience in cryptography. I've just the basic bare minimum. But I did get to do a couple interviews with some founders of some, you know, like Ripple and some other large cryptocurrencies, and they were telling me about how, like, as to what you said, that they were the crypto-resistant algorithms were slower. They haven't implemented them yet. They have a variation of it where if things went crazy overnight, they could flip the switch, and then now they have the quantum-resistant algorithm, although the transactions would be slower. But I'm sitting here thinking, like, that's, everyone's having the conversation about when it's going to happen, and I'm more interested in how do we know when it has happened. Because let's say that you're in a lab with a friend like Robert Suter over at IBM. He's running one of their, you know, he wrote Dancing with Qubits. He's a super cool guy. And, you know, he's over there pushing stuff forward. What if it's one of his, you know, assistants, lab assistants or engineering peers, discovers it that day that they discover it? Like, how do you know when that's going to happen?

(Robert at 00:21:34) I think we'll know because this has so much hype and noise around it that the company that achieves quantum supremacy is going to tell the world.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:47) So that is quantum supremacy when you achieve the ability to break public key?

(Robert at 00:21:51) No. No. Quantum supremacy is the ability to provide quantum computing for commercial grade. You know, whoever wins that race.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:03) Google, Netflix. They already have that though, right?

(Robert at 00:22:05) They do, but not at scale. So as I said earlier, the quantum computers that we know about today are kind of teaching very small computers, you know, without being technical. They're not big enough to use in general purpose computing. Many of them have to be operated in very controlled environments and things, you know. I guess quantum supremacy comes when somebody releases a full-scale quantum computer that can replace general purpose servers and infrastructure that we see used in large enterprise, in our digital services, clouds, and whatever.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:48) So when, they know one and the same, right?

(Robert at 00:22:50) It could be. I mean, we know that the cloud providers are in a big race to provide quantum computing as a service, and of course they are. Because if you can provide computing hundreds of times faster than current computing, there are so many applications that become possible. You know, faster drug development, quicker trading, cleverer trading. You know, the banks are really interested in this for lots of reasons. One of them is absolutely on the trading side of their business.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:26) You don't even need to trade though. Once you get them, just go take all the cryptocurrency you want.

(Robert at 00:23:31) Well, it's interesting. You joke about that. I presented at a global blockchain conference a couple of months ago, and my topic, my chosen topic that day, obviously, was quantum, post-quantum. And when I said that blockchain, the wallet is based on public key cryptography, having just said quantum computers can break it, there were many, many white faces in the room. Kind of, yeah. You mentioned some companies that have already realized this is a threat. There are many out there that won't realize this is a threat, that all those wallets are susceptible. So, you know, in the whole world of crypto and Ethereum, they've got to change. You know, all those blockchains and those decentralized identity systems that use wallets and things, they've all got to change. There's so many parts in our lives that quantum supremacy will impact in many good ways, but, of course, what I'm talking about today with you are the many bad ways unless you prepare.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:46) So help me understand this better. Right now, they're at 400 and something change qubits. We need to be worried once they can put an operating system on a quantum computer, like a traditional—we'll call it a classical—operating system on a quantum computer, and that would be several thousand qubits. So the only way they could break encryption is once, like, the only way the computer would be powerful enough to break encryption is if the computer is powerful enough to run a classical operating system. Is that true or false?

(Robert at 00:25:18) I have to say I'm not technical enough to tell you how you do it. What I do know is that there are people out there, genuine people, you know, people with the right intentions that are already saying we have broken RSA algorithm. Really? They are. But the problem is, I mean, the Chinese claim they had a few months ago, it only becomes relevant and worrisome if they publish how they did it, so clever cryptographers around the world can look carefully at the proof of how they did it and go, actually, that's genuine, they did break it.

There was an organization recently that came to me at a show, an IoT World show in Barcelona, and they said, we've just broken RSA. And my response was, wow, have you published how you did it? Because that's the right way to do it. And they haven't yet, but they intend to publish it through a standards body.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:31) And how long ago was this?

(Robert at 00:26:32) This was, what, three months ago?

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:34) Can you introduce us to those people?

(Robert at 00:26:36) Yeah, well, they'd actually used an IBM quantum simulator, and they'd said they'd use 78 qubits and they'd broken this key. Now it only, as I say, it's only worth attention when all the experts around the world have looked at it and looked at their code, looked at the way they did it and said, no, they genuinely have. I'm not going to give away my source like any good journalist, but it genuinely happened about three months ago. And we're in that same standards body because we're publishing ways to migrate to post-quantum. We've pioneered an area called PQT Hybrid Bridge.

Bear with me. So this whole process of change requires you to switch from classical cryptography to post-quantum, and that process is called crypto agility. And it's a process that involves not just technology. It involves planning, process, policy, training—you know, training people on how to use the new technology, writing procedures around how to operate it. You know, it's not just a tech thing, and—

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:05) Right.

(Robert at 00:28:05) —quite a lot of people in the world think it is a tech thing. You know, I'm not being unfair to a lot of the startups that are entering this space, but they really do have a tech-centric approach, and cryptography, managing cryptography and managing cryptography change is people, technology and process. All those three things have to come together to enact the change. So when you're switching to post-quantum cryptography, wouldn't it be great if you can have systems that support both? And you can tell the system one day, use classical, and next day, use classical.

So if you think back to what I said about crypto operating at all layers in the stack, you know, if the operating system has been upgraded, then the other parts need to be upgraded too before you can fully switch over to post-quantum. So wouldn't it be great if you could buy an operating system that had that magic green button that allowed you to toggle between classical and post-quantum? It's called PQT Hybrid Bridge. And the principle of it is that you can implement technology solutions, and Entrust are already pioneering this. One of our engineers has written the certificate profile published through IETF. Colleague of mine called Mike Ounsworth, he won an award recently via Microsoft. Or he might be nominated and we might still be in—

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:46) Both cases. Won. Yeah.

(Robert at 00:29:48) Let's say he won. He deserves to win. But this Hybrid Bridge principle allows you to—for us, it allows us to provide a customer a PKI where you have a magic switch, and you can tell all of the endpoints that are relying on the digital certificates the PKI issues, you can say, keep using classical, keep using classical. And then when everything around that endpoint is ready to go, you toggle and you say, use Dilithium, one of the four candidate algorithms, or use SPHINCS+, or use Kyber Crystals. And there's one other secret advantage to Hybrid Bridge.

Not only that you can carefully make the change at all layers in the stack until you're totally ready and press go—you know, if you think of these huge landscapes, it's not a—you're not going to do it all overnight. It's going to take years. So you move one thing over at a time and so on. But there is a real secret, isn't it? You could actually implement it with two of the NIST candidates. So you could have Dilithium running, and let's say Dilithium becomes vulnerable. It's a NIST algorithm. It's only been around for a few years. Some of the algorithms we're used to, like RSA, have been around for twenty-five, thirty years, and they have that maturity like good wine. We're confident in them. We're not going to be confident in these new NIST algorithms, NIST competition algorithms. They weren't developed by NIST, but in the competition for many, many years. So we may find a vulnerability in the future.

But wouldn't it be brilliant if you had a choice? So you can toggle from classical to one of the NIST algorithms and then also toggle to another NIST algorithm if that first one you chose becomes vulnerable. Brilliant insurance policy, great future-proofing, pioneered by Entrust. But it's not just us. We're part of a standards body. We don't, you know, we're not making a singular claim that this is our idea. This is the process of very clever people developing an approach that, you know, the standards bodies in Germany, BSI, have said it's the only way to migrate because there's so much crypto agility we have to tackle. Why wouldn't you use this mechanism that allows you that timing, that ability to go, right, I'm good to go. Let's switch.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:33) And that starts with the chipmakers implementing that?

(Robert at 00:32:36) Well, it starts actually with everyone that is providing solutions with cryptography and public key cryptography. Then the ideal scenario is they all implement Hybrid Bridge. Now, not all of them will, but if you have two-thirds of the ecosystem in your connected car, then at least you've got two-thirds in place and you're just waiting for that final piece of the jigsaw, and you implement that and then everything's good to go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:16) And the market will push them there once they stay straight in return. Yeah.

(Robert at 00:33:20) It just makes such common sense. I mean, how many times in our lives has a big bang switchover been successful? I mean, in fact, I have to say I heard a fun story, completely off track. But I think in 1971 in Sweden, they switched the side of the road they drive on at midnight. I don't know whether you've heard this story. But can you imagine the planning that went into, right, move over to the other side of the road? I mean, that's, I think, the only big bang situation I've ever heard of in my life where it's kind of been successful. Though maybe people crashed, maybe people—

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:04) Oh, yeah.

(Robert at 00:34:05) But maybe there weren't many cars on the road then. But it, that's true. You know, you can't switch cryptography in a big bang way, you know, or you can't have hundreds and thousands of test systems just waiting for that day when you can implement it in production and all in post-quantum cryptography. Just doesn't make common sense. This measured process of change using Hybrid Bridge.

I mean, it comes into software development too. So, you know, from today, or at least from tomorrow when people hear this podcast, and I say, tell your DevOps to start developing with post-quantum cryptography in mind. Stop developing solely for classical cryptography. People will thank me. Okay. That's sensible. Why don't I build in that future-proof now? Start today.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:06) 100%. It sounds like, yeah. I mean, if they could, I'm sure they would have done it from the beginning.

(Robert at 00:35:13) True. I mean, there are a few other—I'm simplifying it slightly because, you know, cryptography is built around you create algorithms, which we have, and you can't just pick them up and implement them. There's a whole standards process around cryptography. So the IETF that, you know, maintain and control the standards for many things on the internet in digital, all of those standards that were written for classical cryptography need updating. And they need to publish them. And those new standards need peer review. Everyone needs to be, yeah, there's no errors in there, release version 1.0. Those standards are actually only starting to trickle out. You know, the NIST competition last July, we're now starting to see early versions of standards, which then allows companies like ours and others to implement the cryptography in a standards way. Now we already have implemented these algorithms in some of our solutions. We're providing them as early adopter versions, pre-standards. But the moment we see completed full versions of the standards, absolutely, we'll be getting these hybrid solutions in production version out the door, in the hands of our customers to do that testing and migration, to do that post-quantum readiness planning, to implement. If they have a harvest now, decrypt later problem, they might need that right now.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:53) Do you believe that the good guys are going to figure it out before the bad guys?

(Robert at 00:36:57) I don't know. I was presenting at a CISO forum in London six months ago, and I was alongside a CISO from UK military Ministry of Defense. And we were talking that it was a panel, and someone in the audience said, is harvest now, decrypt later real? And before I got to say, I believe so, my colleague, my fellow panelist alongside me said, absolutely, it's already happening in military and intelligence. So it is real.

It may require huge amounts of resources, state-level capabilities and resources to do it today. But, you know, how long before some of those people in those entities start to come out and provide it to the bad guys? So I think, to answer the question, you know, just my personal opinion, I think they'll run side by side. I don't think there'll be that much advantage in time from the good guys over the bad guys because of who's developing quantum computers already today.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:19) Yeah. So human behavior, I'm sure throughout your journey in leadership and family and all of that, you obviously experience human behavior. I'd say there's a majority of, a lot of people, a meaningful amount of people that wait to the last minute on everything. Yeah. So I'm curious. Like, let's say today, some bad guys figure it out. Boom. Just this afternoon. Hypothetical. Some attack group in some adversarial country figures it out. Right? They've got a number of avenues to pursue. Would we then hear on the evening news that 7 million bank accounts have been hacked and, like, what would it actually express itself as to the general public?

(Robert at 00:39:07) Well, I mean, if the data is encrypted and the data is stolen encrypted, you have followed best practice today. I mean, that's the recommendation. Encrypt your data. I mean, it's not as straightforward as that, you know. Data moves, data is at rest, data is in use, and, you know, Entrust provides solutions for kind of all of that, for encrypting your data but yet keeping it available when it's needed to the right people. I mean, the whole zero trust thing is based on principle of least privilege and never trust, always verify. So you always make sure that Joel is Joel before he has allowed access to the data, but we only allow you access to data you're allowed to see, principle of least privilege. Yeah. Why would we give you all the data? So let's come back to the question about the, you know, if the data is encrypted and it's stolen, you may not know it's stolen. You may not know it. It might not hit the news for seven, ten years until they have their hands on a quantum computer to decrypt that data. Yeah. And that's when they hold you to ransom.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:20) Well, I'm sure that's happening all day, every day. I mean, that I was thinking about that if, like, two years ago when I heard the concept of write once, read never. You know, that's when I got introduced when I was learning about some storage stuff, but people monitoring traffic and storing it and saving it for when they can decrypt it. But let's say, like, that, in my head so far from this conversation, that's one issue. I think it's already happening. Obviously, what you told me, it's definitely happening in the military, which means it's probably likely happening here. But I'm saying, like, let's say they decrypt it or they figure out, you know, how to decrypt the public key today. Like, let's say they do it this afternoon. Are they really going to—they're going to go focus on the data they've already collected? They're not going to go after, like, the freshest data possible?

(Robert at 00:41:14) I have to say, I don't know how they work. They're going to go for the biggest prize. Yeah, the one that hurts the most, the reputational damage, the financial loss, you know, the ransom that can be extracted because I've got your data and I've decrypted it, you know. Or, like ransomware happens today, I've got your data and I've encrypted it and you can buy the key off me. You know, so I couldn't really say. I mean, what I can say is the organizations that are taking notice, and it's actually surprising how many are.

(Robert at 00:41:51) So I've been talking at conferences and CISO events and whatever for nearly two years on this. And the first time I presented, I said, "Right, show of hands. Who has post-quantum cryptography as a risk on your risk register?" No hands.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:11) Oh, really?

(Robert at 00:42:11) Room of 30 CISOs, maybe 40. Literally none. That was two years ago. I continually love asking the question because it gives me a good gauge. When I asked that question, I was in Australia a week and a half ago. I asked that question. More than two-thirds, I'd say almost three-quarters of that audience, all from security in big Australian organizations and government, all of them had post-quantum cryptography on their risk register, and most of them already had teams starting to look at what we call PQ readiness. And that PQ readiness journey, like many journeys, starts with understanding what you've got. You have to have an accurate cryptographic asset inventory. You need to know where you're using vulnerable cryptography. I mean, you should know that anyway for good cyber hygiene because of zero trust maturity. You know, how can you do a risk assessment on something you don't know is there? So you start by creating an accurate cryptographic asset inventory. We provide tools for that. We provide manual advice and governance advice for how to create your inventory. And then you look at your data and you say, "Where's my big aggregations of data, my sensitive data? Where is it flowing? Where is it stored?" And then you look at the cryptography assets that protect the most sensitive segments or parts of your data, your aggregated data. And you say, "Well, that ecosystem has got to be my number one. I'm going to look at that and work out how do I migrate that to post-quantum," and "My second highest risk system, ecosystem number two, three, and four."

(Robert at 00:44:08) And that helps you plan, because we can't suddenly magically create hundreds of crypto experts and people who are experts in the process of crypto change, the policy, the procedures, the skills, the planning, the testing, the migration—all of those things. You're just not going to have the resources all in one go. So once you've done that analysis, that asset inventory and that data asset, and you've mapped it and you have a plan, that's when you can start to what we call practice crypto agility. And there are ways to do that. We help organizations develop a slick, efficient procedure for the process of crypto agility. What do you need to think about when it comes to your suppliers? What do you need to think about when it comes to your people and skills? What do you need to think about when it comes to your policies, procedures, and compliance? What do you need to think about when it comes to the tech? So our scanning tool will find the asset and go, "That's vulnerable." And then, you know, you've got a change to make on that piece of crypto, and you look all around it in the ecosystem, and you've got seven other parts of that ecosystem that all need change. So we're really helping lots of big organizations kick off that process, and I'm really pleased that more and more hands are going up in the rooms I present in, because this is a generational change and a pretty wholesale problem we've got to tackle.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:44) Is the tool open so someone can go download it right now, or is it they connect with you and—

(Robert at 00:45:51) Well, yeah, I mean, we provide it actually as part of an assessment service, and that's the best way to consume it because, you know, of course there's organizations out there with crypto experts. Entrust is full of crypto experts, but also full of people that know how to manage crypto. I mean, that's our business. We've been in it for 25-plus years. If we don't know how to manage it, no wonder. So the process of managing crypto and the process of change of crypto is something that's kind of in our DNA at Entrust. And we can impart that knowledge and experience through what we call the crypto health check to our customers that can kick them off. They learn how to use the tool, they learn how to interpret the results, they learn how to interpret the risks, they learn how to work out the mitigations and what they should do next. And so it's a great way to develop the skill. I call it muscle memory. You've got to learn muscle memory of crypto agility when with quantum around the corner, because you're going to be doing a lot of it.

(Robert at 00:47:02) And you might as well use the time you've got now to get really good at crypto agility and also to consolidate and simplify. I mean, all those messy systems out there that you've kind of lived with just because they work are full of bad crypto, potentially. Now, why would you go to the hassle of migrating an already old and legacy system, you know, that you've just let run? What you want to do is consolidate, simplify, and modernize now to make the whole journey easier. You know, if you've got less to change, you can have an easier life when it comes to the migration. And there are products out there, you know, like Hybrid Bridge, a super modern key management system like our KeyControl that enables that, builds in crypto agility. So I've been saying to organizations for quite some time now, use the breathing space we've got now to get your inventory, get your plan in place, practice crypto agility, and consolidate and simplify what you've got. The less you have to change, the easier it is. It's common sense, really, isn't it, Joel?

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:21) How can people that are listening, let's say they want a crypto health check, how can they get one of those?

(Robert at 00:48:27) Just come to us. I mean, we do these all the time to help organizations kick-start their post-quantum readiness. You know, one of the beauties of this, of like a crypto health check, a snapshot on the system, is a lot of organizations are going to have to go to their boards and say, "I think I need $50 million to manage this change." And the board will say, "How can you be sure it's $50 million?" And they go, "I can't be sure." "Well, go away and be more sure." So they go away and they come to us and say, "Can you do a crypto health check on one ecosystem or one part?" And if you do it on one part, you can just extrapolate up. If you work out that that system's going to cost you $2 million to change in the whole process of change and testing and everything, and you've got 50 other systems like it, you know you've probably got a $100 million problem. You know, not all at once, over the next three, five years. That's the kind of substance that you need to be going to get the money to fund the change from boards and budget holders. So there's a practical benefit to crypto health checks right now. It's to say, "I'm going to spend a lot of money in the years to come," and give some level of confidence on how big or medium that budget is going to have to be.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:01) Well, yeah, for everyone listening, just go to them before you go to your board so you look smart to your board.

(Robert at 00:50:10) True.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:10) Right?

(Robert at 00:50:10) Yeah. You don't want to go stand in front and—

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:12) Be like, "Oh, I need $50 million. I don't know why." It's like, just go to Entrust. Be like, "Yeah."

(Robert at 00:50:16) A lot of people don't know how to go about the sizing of the problem because you haven't had to—

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:21) Go to entrust.com.

(Robert at 00:50:23) Well, contact. You haven't had to do it before. You know, it's not—you know, changing crypto happens kind of slowly over the last couple of decades. We've never had a wholesale generational change like this. So people have never had to kind of justify this kind of spend because, you know, it's been much more discrete on a single system or, you know, it's never had to happen. Like, you're probably not old enough to remember the Y2K problem, Joel. But I am.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:56) I remember exactly where I was the night of Y2K.

(Robert at 00:50:58) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:00) I'm 35, so I was like 11 or 12. I was at a municipal's house, and nothing happened. Everyone was like, so much tension. My dad's an engineer. So he did—he was in the Air Force, and they put the GPS systems into the stealth bombers. And at the time, it was classified and all of that. So he grew up with a mix of hardware and software, and he would take me to work with him. My other siblings did not come, and so I got a lot of exposure to a lot of different types of technology early on. So, yeah, I remember them talking around the office about this whole Y2K thing. And then I remember them sharing stories because I think it was a weekend, though, on Y2K. But they were sharing stories, like, the next week at the office all about a couple utility plants in certain parts of the country went down. And, you know, to think about all the hype that was around it, if you happen to be in one of those cities where the power did go out, you could have thought the world was entirely ending.

(Robert at 00:51:57) Well, I mean, Y2K—I bring it up because Y2K was kind of the biggest underwhelming event. The only reason it was underwhelming was millions upon millions of dollars had been spent on preparation, on checking. And, you know, every system had to be looked at. Kind of the same with crypto, post-quantum crypto. You have to spend the money to look. But what we do know that's different is there will be change. You know, this time around, actually, every time you find public key cryptography, you're going to be changing it. So there's many more millions to be spent to implement the migration. That's the key difference. It's what is probably the best thought to leave people with that are old enough to remember.

(Joel Beasley at 00:52:53) Oh, yeah. Yeah. I want to be respectful of your time, so when this episode airs and people start talking to me about it, I'll have about a million more questions for you.

(Robert at 00:53:02) Okay. Well, I'm happy to answer questions. I love talking about this stuff.

(Joel Beasley at 00:53:06) Yeah. And we'll direct people to Entrust's website, and we'll put links to everything in the episode. But is there anything that we needed to get out there today that we didn't touch on?

(Robert at 00:53:16) I don't think so. I think I've really covered it. I mean, the key thing for everyone out there listening to this: don't delay. Start investigating the problem now. Because it's kind of—one of my colleagues has a great analogy. It's like all the—you're on a desert at night and all the villagers are on the beach. They're looking out to sea and they can see a storm approaching. No one knows how fast it's moving, what direction it's coming in. What we do know is it's going to hit at some point, you know, in a few hours, in a few days. And that's what really post-quantum readiness is. We know the storm's coming. We know it's going to hit, but we can't predict the time frame. So logically, you'd start battening down the hatches kind of right away. Start preparing now. Because if it did come in a few hours, you're prepared. You wouldn't just keep drinking your piña coladas and your mai tais and dancing on the beach until, "Oh, that storm's really close now." You know? And that's really a great analogy to think about. It's to go away and go back to your organization and say, "Do we have a harvest now, decrypt later problem? If you do, give people like us a call. We've got good advice. We've got tools to help you. Have we started sizing the post-quantum readiness?" If not, have a look, start investigating, form a team, do a crypto health check, you know, and start to work out how big this is going to be for you as an organization. And finally, there are some really exciting quantum technologies out there. You know, you don't have to continue using public key cryptography that's quantum-resistant. You may look at some of these brand new quantum key distribution technologies. Most people wouldn't think they're mature enough yet. A lot of them are proprietary, which puts a lot of people off. But, you know, there's probably some really cool stuff out there, you know, and I know some of our biggest customers are starting to look at some of those things, but they're very cautious. You know, they want comfort, safety in numbers. So get excited about that stuff. But right now, take a look, see how big it is for you, and make sure you have a plan. That's my final comment.

(Joel Beasley at 00:55:52) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email, [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.