Announcements

NCCoE Releases Preliminary Draft NIST SP 1800-38A, Migration to Post Quantum Cryptography for Public Comment

NIST | NCCoE

The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has released a preliminary draft practice guide, NIST Special Publication (SP) 1800-38A, Migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography, for public comment. The comment period is open now through June 8, 2023.

About the Project

Advances in quantum computing could compromise many of the current cryptographic algorithms being widely used to protect digital information, necessitating replacement of existing algorithms with quantum-resistant ones. Previous initiatives to update or replace installed cryptographic technologies have taken many years, so it is critical to begin planning for the replacement of hardware, software, and services that use affected algorithms now so that data and systems can be protected from future quantum computer-based attacks. 

NIST has been soliciting, evaluating, and standardizing quantum-resistant public-key cryptographic algorithms (https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/post-quantum-cryptography). To complement this effort, the NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) is engaging with industry collaborators and regulated industry sectors and the U.S. Federal Government to bring awareness to the issues involved in migrating to post-quantum algorithms and to prepare the crypto community for migration.  

As the project progresses, this preliminary draft will be updated, and additional volumes will also be released for comment. 

Submit Comments

The public comment period for this draft closes at 11:59 p.m. ET on June 8, 2023.

  1. View the publication.
  2. Submit comments via the webform on the project page.
  3. Email questions to applied-crypto-pqc@nist.gov.

All comments that are received will be reviewed and adjudicated to inform a future draft of the publication. 

We value and welcome your input and look forward to your comments.

Join the Community of Interest

If you would like to help shape this project, consider joining the NCCoE Migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography Community of Interest (COI) to receive the latest project news and updates! Join on the project page.