For many years, quantum computing lived mostly in the world of theory, research labs, and experimental projects. That is starting to change. Today, it is increasingly seen as one of the technologies with the greatest potential to reshape the way organizations solve complex problems.
Its potential applications are broad. Artificial intelligence, logistics optimization, financial simulation, energy grid management, and drug discovery are just some of the areas where quantum computing could open new possibilities. This helps explain why public and private investment in the field continues to grow.
Across Europe, North America, and the UK, funding for quantum research and infrastructure has been gaining momentum. At the same time, specialized companies continue to attract capital from international investors. The message is becoming clear: quantum computing is no longer just a scientific promise. It is becoming a strategic priority for competitiveness, technological sovereignty, and industrial innovation.
But the same potential that makes quantum computing so relevant also raises a serious cybersecurity challenge.
Many of the cryptographic systems that currently protect communications, financial transactions, digital identities, and critical infrastructure are based on mathematical problems that are extremely difficult for classical computers to solve. With sufficiently advanced quantum computers, some of those problems may no longer be difficult enough.
In its study How Quantum Computing Will Upend Cybersecurity, Boston Consulting Group estimates that, at the current pace of development, quantum computers with thousands of qubits could have more than a 50% probability of breaking algorithms currently in use, such as RSA-2048, by 2035.
Why SSO is Critical in Healthcare
Single Sign-On (SSO) allows clinicians to use one credential to access all of their clinical applications. Without it, the multiplication of passwords and fragmented logins creates a pressure triangle with consequences across three key dimensions:
- Compromised clinical efficiency: every extra login slows hospital workflows and takes precious time away from patient care.
- Greater exposure to human error: weak or reused passwords, sticky notes with logins hidden in drawers, and shared access in emergencies all create security gaps.
- Compliance at risk: GDPR and NIS2 demand traceability and strict controls, which are nearly impossible to ensure with manual processes.
The outcome is clear: higher support costs, risks that are harder to justify during audits, and IT teams trapped in reactive firefighting instead of proactive planning. For caregivers, it often feels like technology is slowing them down rather than helping them move faster.
As a recent HealthTech Magazine article (April 2025) highlighted, SSO “brings security and empathy together” by removing barriers that keep clinicians from focusing on what matters most: delivering the best possible care. That’s exactly what Imprivata OneSign offers healthcare, transforming the concept of SSO into daily practice, tailored to both clinical and IT needs.
In this context, the transition to post-quantum cryptography should not be treated as a simple technical upgrade. It is a long-term transformation program, with implications for architecture, investment, risk, and business continuity. For CIOs, CISOs, and IT Managers, understanding how quantum computing and cybersecurity fit into the organization’s roadmap is becoming essential to making the right decisions before the threat becomes operational.
In this article, we look at three essential questions:
- How does quantum computing put pressure on today’s cybersecurity model?
- What options exist to protect data and infrastructure investments?
- Which decisions should organizations start preparing in the short term?
How quantum computing puts pressure on cybersecurity
The main impact of quantum computing on cybersecurity is related to asymmetric cryptography.
Algorithms such as RSA and ECC are widely used to protect digital communications, authenticate identities, and generate cryptographic keys, which are then used by symmetric algorithms such as AES. These mechanisms are part of the trust model behind many of the digital services and infrastructures that organizations rely on every day.
If quantum computers become powerful enough to break these algorithms, the impact will not be limited to one system or one application. It will affect an entire chain of trust, including:
- Protocols that protect web sessions, APIs, and integrations, as well as VPNs connecting branches, factories, data centers, and cloud environments.
- Corporate PKIs, certificates, authentication, digital signatures, and mechanisms that help ensure that the code reaching production can be trusted.
- IoT and OT devices that remain in operation for many years and are often harder to update or replace.
When this chain of trust is weakened, the issue is no longer just technical. It becomes structural. An attacker may not be able to break a tunnel, key, or encrypted communication today. However, they may be able to record traffic, store encrypted material, and decrypt it later once quantum capabilities become available. This is known as a “harvest now, decrypt later” scenario.
The risk is particularly relevant in sectors where data retains strategic, legal, or reputational value for many years. Information that is protected today may still need to remain confidential in ten, fifteen, or twenty years.
That leads to a simple but difficult question: which information in your organization must remain confidential once quantum capabilities become accessible?
Resilience, compliance, and reputation: the strategic side of the quantum threat
Business continuity and cyber resilience depend on trusted security foundations. Zero Trust models, strong authentication, and network segmentation all assume that certain cryptographic mechanisms can be relied upon. If that foundation changes, the impact spreads across several layers. It affects remote access, the way applications communicate in hybrid environments, the protection of data in motion, and the level of trust between systems, users, and services.
Compliance is another important dimension. Regulators, auditors, and strategic clients may start asking what organizations are doing to manage quantum-related risk, especially in sectors that handle sensitive information, such as healthcare, banking, insurance, energy, and the public sector. In this context, the absence of a plan is not only a technology risk. It can become a governance risk.
There is also a competitive aspect. In many markets, the ability to demonstrate security maturity and long-term vision is already a differentiating factor. Entering a discussion about quantum-safe requirements with work already underway is very different from having to respond under pressure to a security questionnaire from a key client.
Post-quantum cryptography: what changes in practice
International standardization bodies have been developing recommendations for post-quantum algorithms, and leading vendors are already beginning to integrate them into security products, operating systems, and cloud services.
For organizations, this brings two messages. The first is positive: there is now a credible technological path to replace the algorithms most exposed to quantum attacks. The second requires more caution: this transition is not just about updating software.
Moving toward post-quantum cryptography may require organizations to review integrations, assess performance impact, rethink certifications, update contracts, and develop new internal skills. It may also affect procurement decisions, vendor evaluations, and the way new systems are designed from the outset.
The important question is not only which algorithms will be used but also how the organization can create the right conditions to adopt them without unnecessary disruption, unexpected costs, or new risks.
What it means to be quantum safe
Adopting post-quantum cryptography is essential, but it is not enough. A quantum-safe organization is not one that simply launches a large-scale algorithm replacement project. It builds a quantum-safe security strategy, enabling it to adapt its cryptography over time as new threats, standards, and technologies emerge.
This starts with the way applications and infrastructure are designed. Whenever possible, cryptography should be concentrated in well-defined components, such as libraries, internal services, and security gateways. It should not be scattered across multiple teams, systems, and lines of code in ways that make future changes difficult to control.
This approach gives the organization more flexibility. When change is needed, there are fewer intervention points, less operational friction, and a clearer view of dependencies.
A second priority is the management of identities, keys, and certificates. Knowing how many certificates exist, where they are used, when they expire, and which chains of trust they depend on is a minimum requirement for any serious migration, quantum-related or not.
Without this visibility, any attempt to evolve the security model increases the risk of failures, interruptions, and hidden dependencies.
The third dimension is architecture and governance. Decisions around Zero Trust, network segmentation, cloud solutions, or SD-WAN can already include quantum-safe criteria. For example, organizations can start giving preference to vendors with a clear post-quantum cryptography roadmap or include support for hybrid modes in RFPs.
This is where the topic moves beyond cryptography. Quantum safety becomes part of the decisions organizations are already making about infrastructure, security, procurement, and long-term resilience.
How to structure a post-quantum plan
Rather than starting with a catalog of algorithms, organizations should approach this topic as a gradual transformation program. A realistic plan can begin with four areas of work.
1. Understand what already exists
The first step is to build a serious inventory of where and how cryptography is being used.
This should go beyond the most visible perimeter. It should include business applications, partner integrations, network and security components, devices in the field, as well as backup, archiving and data retention processes.
Without this baseline, it is difficult to understand exposure, define priorities, or estimate the complexity of future changes.
2. Cross-reference criticality, time, and complexity
Once the map is in place, the next step is to look at business priorities.
Systems and data should be assessed according to several criteria: how critical they are to the business, how long the information needs to remain protected, how difficult the systems are to change or replace, and what level of regulatory or contractual scrutiny applies.
Assets that combine high criticality, long confidentiality requirements, and high complexity should naturally move higher up the priority list.
3. Create the right conditions before changing algorithms
Before a large-scale post-quantum migration, there is useful work that organizations can already undertake.
This includes consolidating cryptographic libraries and services, reviewing PKI, improving certificate management, assessing sensitive integrations, and defining policies for new development that avoid rigid dependencies from the outset.
These steps may not yet look like a post-quantum migration, but they make future migration more controlled, less disruptive, and easier to govern.
4. Pilot and plan post-quantum adoption
Once the foundations are stronger, organizations can start testing post-quantum approaches in carefully selected contexts.
This may include high-criticality connections between data centers or cloud regions with high criticality, new services designed from the outset to operate in hybrid mode by combining classical and post-quantum algorithms, or security components that allow experimentation without exposing production environments.
The goal is not to change everything at once. The goal is to learn, validate, reduce uncertainty, and prepare the organization for broader adoption when standards, vendors, and internal readiness are aligned.
Why a trusted partner such as Warpcom matters
For many IT and security teams, the reality is familiar: there is limited time for “additional projects,” while modernization, cloud, networking, data protection and compliance initiatives are already underway.
That is why the quantum-safe discussion should not be treated as a separate concern. It needs to be connected to the roadmap the organization is already building.
With extensive experience in cybersecurity and networking, data center and cloud solutions across hybrid and multicloud environments, and managed services that provide continuous visibility into risk and performance, Warpcom helps organizations turn this concern into a structured plan.
This includes assessing exposure associated with the current use of cryptography, defining crypto-agility and quantum-safe strategies aligned with the IT roadmap, and supporting the selection and integration of solutions compatible with emerging standards and regulatory requirements.
In practice, the objective is to make the transition more controlled, more efficient, and better aligned with business priorities.
