Adversaries do not need a working quantum computer today to threaten your data tomorrow. Under a Harvest Now, Decrypt Later (HNDL) strategy, encrypted traffic - VPN handshakes, TLS sessions, archived backups - is intercepted and stored now, with the expectation that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer will be able to break the underlying RSA or ECC keys within the next several years.
Why this matters today
Any data with a confidentiality shelf life longer than the time it takes quantum computers to mature is already at risk. For sovereign infrastructure - grid telemetry, defense communications, long-term financial records - that shelf life can run into decades.
What AEGIS is building toward
AEGIS is designed around a crypto-agility approach: wrapping existing classical handshakes in a parallel post-quantum envelope, so traffic captured today would resist decryption even after cryptographically relevant quantum computers arrive, without interrupting the systems that depend on that traffic being available now.
That protection layer is currently a prototype, not a deployed capability - a hybrid classical + ML-KEM handshake has been demonstrated on TLS 1.3. The Discover engine that finds where you’re exposed to HNDL risk in the first place is further along, with automated cryptographic asset scanning and CBOM generation validated as a working proof of concept.