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Risks and capability

Four cybersecurity and cryptography risk objects open the portfolio. Order carries no rank. Each is read across driver, exposure, vulnerability, capacity, cascade and consequence.

5 min read0 figures1 table16 notesNR-XTECH-CRYPTO-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Cryptography is infrastructure under change
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
    1. 4.1 Risk objects
    2. 4.2 Capability ladder
  7. 5Signature lag while key agreement migrates
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

4.1Risk objects

Each risk is read across the chain from hazard to consequence, with its status and evidence-quality level.

  1. InferredEQL 4RSK-XT10-CRY-001

    Cryptographic transition lag

    Driver
    falling resource estimates and slow migration221
    Exposure
    long-lived sensitive data; signatures on long-life devices
    Vulnerability
    inventory gaps; embedded and legacy systems
    Capacity
    standards and national timelines11012
    Cascade
    DAT → FIN, HLT, INF
    Horizon
    1 to 10 years

  2. InferredEQL 3RSK-XT10-INF-002

    Signature and certificate migration lag

    Driver
    larger signatures and slow trust-store change23
    Exposure
    web, code signing, device identity
    Vulnerability
    performance limits; long-lived certificates
    Capacity
    new schemes under evaluation42
    Cascade
    INF → DAT
    Horizon
    1 to 5 years

  3. ReportedEQL 4RSK-XT10-THR-003

    Known vulnerabilities in edge devices

    Driver
    exploitation of known CVEs1314
    Exposure
    routers, gateways, telecom and transport networks
    Vulnerability
    slow patching; exposed management planes
    Capacity
    catalogues, advisories and hardening guidance1314
    Cascade
    INF → ENE, FIN
    Horizon
    1 to 5 years

  4. InferredEQL 3RSK-XT10-GOV-004

    Fragmented timelines and duties

    Driver
    different dates in NCSC, NIST draft, EU and CISA material44101112
    Exposure
    multinational operators and suppliers
    Vulnerability
    duplicate reporting; unclear product duties
    Capacity
    standards, roadmaps and shared guidance911
    Cascade
    GOV → INF, FIN
    Horizon
    1 to 5 years

4.2Capability ladder

Existence is not readiness. Each of the fifteen capability functions is placed on the ladder by the strongest public evidence for cybersecurity and cryptography at the global level.

Table 4.1Capabilities on the ladder of evidence: listed, exists, demonstrated, tested
FunctionRungLevelStrongest public evidence at baseline
Prevention and mitigationEXISTSpost-quantum standards and guidance published17
Monitoring and observationEXISTSexploited-vulnerability catalogue maintained13
Early warningEXISTSjoint advisories issued by agencies14
Preparedness and planningEXISTSnational timelines and the NIST transition draft1044
Redundancy and reservesLISTEDno evidence of fallback algorithms deployed at scale; HQC is a backup standard in preparation6
ResponseLISTEDno tested response to a sudden break of a deployed algorithm
Continuity of critical servicesLISTEDmigration of critical systems not yet reported
RecoveryLISTEDnot applicable at baseline for cryptographic break; incident recovery figures are vendor-reported18
AdaptationEXISTSframework and agility guidance published97
Social protectionLISTEDnot applicable at baseline
Finance and insuranceLISTEDcost evidence is from vendors; no insurance data bound18
Institutional coordinationEXISTSagencies co-seal advisories; EU and national roadmaps1114
Technical infrastructureEXISTSopen-source and network deployments of hybrid key agreement2324
WorkforceLISTEDskills needs reported; no gap figure published20
Research capacityADEQUATEpublic standardisation process and published estimates226
A capability listed in policy is not a tested one; each rung is the strongest public evidence at baseline.

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 22Gidney, C., How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers with less than a million noisy qubits, arXiv:2505.15917, submitted 21 May 2025 (abstract page; under one million noisy qubits; under a week; 0.1% gate error; 1 microsecond cycle; 10 microsecond reaction time; the author’s 2019 estimate was about 20 million qubits in 8 hours). arXiv, Ithaca. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 1NIST (ed.), Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism Standard, FIPS 203 (publication page; final 13 August 2024; ML-KEM-512, ML-KEM-768 and ML-KEM-1024; initial draft 24 August 2023). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 10UK National Cyber Security Centre (ed.), Timelines for migration to post-quantum cryptography (guidance page; version 1.0, 20 March 2025; milestones 2028, 2031 and 2035). NCSC, London. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 12CISA (ed.), Post-Quantum Cryptography Initiative (page; key dates, federal inventory duty under 6 U.S.C. 1526, product categories list, references to Executive Orders 14306, 14412 and 14413 and OMB Memorandum M-26-15). Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Arlington. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 23Cloudflare (ed.), The state of the post-quantum Internet in 2025 (blog analysis; late October 2025 majority of human traffic with post-quantum key agreement; 3.7% of origins; 39% of top 100,000 domains in September 2025; ML-DSA-44 about 15 kB; first post-quantum certificates expected in 2026). Cloudflare, San Francisco. Vendor analysis of its own network, weak evidence. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  6. 42UNVERIFIED, not opened: NIST (ed.), additional digital signature schemes for the post-quantum project (on-ramp), cited from memory; the project page returned an error. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 13POST-CLOSE, context only: CISA (ed.), Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog (catalogue page; 1,767 results at the read; newest entry added 2026-11-03). Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Arlington. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 14CISA and 22 partner agencies (eds.), Countering Chinese State-Sponsored Actors Compromise of Networks Worldwide to Feed Global Espionage System, advisory AA25-239A (published 27 August 2025; revised 3 September 2025; 23 agencies from 13 countries; known vulnerabilities; no zero-day exploitation observed). Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Arlington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 44NIST (ed.), Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards, NIST IR 8547, initial public draft (draft PDF, November 2024; Tables 2 and 4: for quantum-vulnerable signature and key-establishment schemes at 112 bits of security strength, deprecated after 2030 and disallowed after 2035, and at 128 bits or more, disallowed after 2035; the cover sheet added on withdrawal on 27 October 2026 is not used). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 11European Commission (ed.), Coordinated Implementation Roadmap for the transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography (library page; published 23 June 2025; the milestones were not on the page). Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 9NIST (ed.), The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0, NIST CSWP 29 (publication page; 26 February 2024). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  12. 7NIST (ed.), Recommendations for Key-Encapsulation Mechanisms, SP 800-227 (publication page; final 18 September 2025). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  13. 6NIST (ed.), NIST selects HQC as fifth algorithm for post-quantum encryption (news item, 11 March 2025; backup to ML-KEM; draft standard expected in about a year; final standard expected in 2027). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  14. 18IBM and Ponemon Institute (eds.), Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 (landing page; global average USD 4.99 million, up 12%; AI-driven attacks up 56%). IBM, Armonk. Vendor report, weak evidence; the full report was not opened. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  15. 24OpenSSH project (ed.), Post-quantum cryptography in OpenSSH (documentation page; sntrup761x25519-sha512 from 9.0; mlkem768x25519-sha256 added in 9.9 and default in 10.0; warning from 10.1). OpenBSD Project. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  16. 20ISC2 (ed.), 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Study (page; published 4 December 2025; 16,029 respondents; 59% critical or significant skills needs, up from 44%; no workforce gap estimate). ISC2, Alexandria. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 4: Risks and capability. In Exponential Technology Report 2026: Cybersecurity and Advanced Cryptography (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-XTECH-CRYPTO-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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