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Today, we dive into the silent, long-term threat known as "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" (HNDL), an active operational strategy used by sophisticated threat actors, including state-sponsored groups. This isn't a hack happening now; it's a "time bomb" where adversaries are stealing and stockpiling vast amounts of encrypted data—like financial records, trade secrets, and classified communications—with no intention of breaking it today.

The Core Vulnerability: Current Public-Key Cryptography (PKC) relies on mathematical problems that are secure against classical computers. However, the arrival of a Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computer (CRQC), capable of running Shor's Algorithm, will render this encryption trivial to break, turning all that archived data into "a devastatingly decrypted treasure". The moment this quantum leap arrives—known as Q-Day or Y2Q—any data that needs to remain secret for five, ten, or twenty years is already compromised.

The Defense and the Urgency: We break down Mosca's Inequality ($X + Y > Z$) to quantify this time-based risk, showing that a system fails if the data's confidentiality duration ($X$) plus the time it takes to migrate to new encryption ($Y$) exceeds the Quantum Threat Horizon ($Z$). The solution is the global adoption of new Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) standards, finalized by NIST, which are secure against both classical and quantum computers.

Organizations are urged to begin an urgent, phased transition using hybrid cryptography—layering PQC with classical algorithms—to ensure defense. Learn the key steps for your Quantum-Readiness Roadmap, including Preparation and Inventory and implementing Crypto-Agility, to prevent the data being harvested today from destroying your organization a decade from now.

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