What post-quantum cryptography means for an ordinary website
New encryption standards were finalised in 2024. For most sites the change will arrive quietly, inside the software they already use.
The standards body in the United States published three algorithms designed to resist attack by a large quantum computer, ending a selection process that took eight years. (NIST)
No such computer exists yet. The urgency comes from data that must stay secret for decades: anything recorded today could be decrypted later.
Where it lands
For a website the change is in the transport layer. Browsers and servers negotiate a key exchange; the new algorithms slot in alongside the old ones in the same handshake, and modern transport protocols were designed to make that swap possible. (J. Iyengar and M. Thomson)
The practical advice is unglamorous: keep the web server and its TLS library current, and the upgrade will arrive on its own.
References
J. Iyengar and M. Thomson. RFC 9000: QUIC: A UDP-Based Multiplexed and Secure Transport. Internet Engineering Task Force, 2021. www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9000. Accessed 22 Apr. 2025.
NIST. Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards (FIPS 203, 204, 205). National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2024. csrc.nist.gov/projects/post-quantum-cryptography. Accessed 22 Apr. 2025.
Cite this story
Dispatch Report (2025) ‘What post-quantum cryptography means for an ordinary website’, 22 April. Available at: https://thedispatchreport.com/article/what-post-quantum-cryptography-means-for-an-ordinary-website (Accessed: 5 October 2026).
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