Quantum cryptography
FortiGates offer several quantum-safe capabilities designed to protect IPsec VPNs against future quantum attacks, including Harvest Now, Decrypt Later threats. With this risk rapidly approaching, the need to adopt post quantum cryptography (PQC) should be evaluated based on the urgency created by an organization’s data sensitivity and regulatory exposure.
Urgency
Administrators should still begin preparing for PQC adoption as early as possible. For organizations with lower urgency, FortiGate provides a hybrid mode that supports a gradual transition with minimal operational disruption.
High urgency
Organizations that handle long lived data, such as medical records, intellectual property, or classified government information, face the greatest risk. These data types must remain confidential for decades, which makes them prime targets for Harvest Now, Decrypt Later attacks, where adversaries steal encrypted data today with the intention of decrypting it once quantum capabilities mature.
Medium urgency
Organizations with short lived data operating in highly regulated industries, such as finance, healthcare, energy, or critical infrastructure, will soon face compliance requirements tied to NIST’s PQC standards. Even if data does not require decades of protection, regulators will mandate PQC adoption as part of broader modernization and risk management frameworks. These organizations should begin planning for hybrid PQC deployments, updating cryptographic inventories, and ensuring their infrastructure can support PQC capable protocols.
Low urgency
Organizations with minimal confidentiality requirements, short lived data, or environments dominated by legacy systems may not need immediate PQC adoption. More pressing priorities may include addressing existing vulnerabilities, improving basic security hygiene, or modernizing outdated infrastructure. PQC adoption can be deferred until systems are upgraded or compliance requirements evolve.
FortiGate quantum features
IPsec keying
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Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) uses a server to distribute the quantum-generated Security Association keys to FortiGates, eliminating the key exchange process.
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Hybrid Key Exchange allows IKEv2 to perform multiple key exchanges in a single IKE SA establishment by adding one or more post quantum Key Exchange Mechanisms (KEMs) to these exchanges.
Agentless VPN
TLS groups can be set to use pure and hybrid PQC algorithms in addition to traditional algorithms. This requires the user’s browser to support these algorithms. See Post-Quantum Cryptography for Agentless VPN for more details.
HTTPS management
FortiGate management interfaces support PQC algorithms in addition to existing traditional algorithms in a hybrid approach. No configuration is required, and browsers without PQC capabilities will fall back to classical cryptography. See Enhanced HTTPS management security with post-quantum TLS algorithms for more details.