Hundreds of trillions of dollars will be at stake if the industry is not sufficiently prepared for state-sponsored post-quantum threats: experts

In view of emerging critical threat vectors such as quantum computing, a non-profit organization on a mission to improve the cybersecurity of the global financial sector has released a white paper to help financial services institutions understand the importance of building “cryptographic agility”.

Targeted at both business and technical audiences, the paper by the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) paper focuses on three key concepts: a framework for implementing crypto agility; an explanation of the challenges organizations may face in implementing crypto agility; and a set of insights on transition governance and architecture.

According to the paper, the move to crypto agility must begin immediately because quantum computing is likely to make a commonly used class of cryptography algorithms insecure in the next few years. This is expected to create a risk of exposed data transmission or storage that would break the way business is conducted.

Additionally, crypto agility must be viewed as a long-term strategy, not a one-off implementation, in order to keep financial services firms secure and compliant for the long term. Said FS-ISAC’s Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Michael Silverman: “The goal of crypto agility is simple: to enable business continuity when existing cryptography is compromised or weakened. The transition to crypto agility is vital in maintaining the trust upon which the financial services sector is built and ensuring the safety of business operations in today’s complex, ever-evolving computing environment.”