Legal confidentiality that outlives the quantum transition.

Why is legal data the prime harvest-now target?

Harvest now, decrypt later is an attack on data with long confidentiality lifetimes: an adversary captures encrypted files today, stores them cheaply, and decrypts them once a capable quantum computer exists. Most stolen data loses value in months. Legal data does the opposite — privilege and trade secrets never expire, sealed settlements and M&A files must stay confidential for decades. If a record must outlive the cryptographic transition, today's RSA and ECDSA are not protecting it for its full lifetime.

What are the real deadlines?

• August 13, 2024 — NIST finalized FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA), and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA): the standardized post-quantum algorithms.
• After 2030 — RSA and ECDSA at common strengths are slated for deprecation under NIST's draft transition guidance (IR 8547).
• After 2035 — the same classical algorithms are slated to be disallowed entirely.

What quantum-safe honestly means

Quantum-safe cryptography is designed to resist attack by a future quantum computer based on the attacks we can foresee — it is an engineering standard, not an oath, which is why we never say “quantum-proof.” Also worth naming plainly: quantum random-number generation and quantum key distribution are separate technologies and are not post-quantum cryptography. What matters for your records is whether the signatures protecting them use the NIST-standardized post-quantum algorithms. Ours do.

Frequently asked questions

Is quantum decryption possible today?

No. A cryptographically relevant quantum computer does not exist yet, and no honest vendor will name the year one arrives. The risk is anticipatory: encrypted legal data captured today can be decrypted in the future, and legal confidentiality obligations routinely outlast that horizon. That is why long-lived records deserve post-quantum protection now, without any countdown-clock hype.

What data should a firm protect first?

Whatever must stay confidential the longest: privileged communications, trade secrets, sealed settlements, M&A and IP files, and long-lived matter records. Rank data classes by confidentiality lifetime; anything that must stay secret beyond roughly 2030–2035 is already inside the harvest-now window and belongs at the front of the migration queue.

Does RankShield use QRNG or QKD?

Our quantum-safety claim rests on NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptography — ML-DSA and SLH-DSA signatures (FIPS 204/205). QRNG and QKD are different technologies that address entropy and key exchange; they are not substitutes for post-quantum algorithms, and we do not present them as such.