Your Entry Point to Post-Quantum Cryptography
The global transition to post-quantum cryptography is underway. NIST has finalized standards. Governments have set procurement gates and dated transition milestones. The exact obligations depend on jurisdiction, sector, and system scope. The harvest-now-decrypt-later threat is active today. This half-day course gives you the foundational understanding you need to engage with PQC migration work, whether you are a security professional, IT leader, developer, or consultant.
Post-Quantum Foundation covers what every professional needs to know before going deeper. You learn what the quantum threat is and is not, what NIST has standardized and why, and what a PQC migration involves in practice. You also learn to assess timelines and urgency from the evidence, without relying on vendor-driven fear.
This course does not prepare you for hands-on implementation, migration planning, or any Quantum Academy certification exam. We strongly recommend it before you enroll in Post-Quantum Certified Specialist (PQCS) Training.
Course Outline
Module 1 The Quantum Threat to Cryptography
What quantum computers can and cannot do. How Shor’s algorithm breaks RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography. Why symmetric algorithms (AES) and hash functions are less affected. The distinction between quantum advantage demonstrations and cryptographically relevant capability. The HNDL threat model: adversaries harvesting encrypted data today for future decryption when a CRQC becomes available. The TNFL threat model: digital signatures that could be forged retroactively, undermining trust in software updates, legal documents, and financial transactions. Why both threats create urgency even though a CRQC does not yet exist.
Module 2 Post-Quantum Standards: NIST and Beyond
The NIST standardization process and what it produced. ML-KEM for key encapsulation: what it does, where it applies, and why it is the default choice for most key exchange scenarios. ML-DSA for general-purpose digital signatures: performance characteristics and deployment considerations. SLH-DSA as the conservative, hash-based alternative for organizations that want security assumptions independent of lattice problems. FN-DSA for applications where compact signatures matter. HQC, the code-based KEM that NIST selected in March 2025 and is now standardizing to add algorithmic diversity. Why NIST selected these algorithms and how to read the standards at a level sufficient for planning conversations. Beyond NIST, in brief: the post-quantum algorithms other countries are selecting or recommending, and how their choices differ from NIST’s.
Module 3 PQC Migration Overview
What a PQC migration actually involves: the PQC Migration Framework phases from discovery and inventory through implementation, verification, and operational handover. Why migrations take years, not months: the discovery challenge, the testing burden, the vendor dependency problem, and the coordination required across interconnected systems. Where organizations typically start. The role of hybrid cryptography as a transition mechanism. What “done” looks like, and why migration becomes a permanent operational capability.
Module 4 Regulatory and Market Drivers
CNSA 2.0 and the US government timeline, including the January 2027 acquisition gate. EU quantum-readiness initiatives and the NIS2 connection. Sector-specific mandates in financial services (G7 Cyber Expert Group, PCI DSS cryptographic inventory requirement), telecommunications (GSMA PQ.01-PQ.07), and defense (NSM-10). How supervisors, clients, investors and insurers are adding pressure beyond regulation. The difference between compliance-driven and risk-driven migration, and why organizations need both lenses.
Format and Delivery
This program is available online on-demand, live online, in person, and as private team training. Current prices for each format are in the booking section below. Live online and in-person sessions include 180 days of access to the online on-demand course. Where that course is not yet published, the 180 days start on the day it is.
Prerequisites
None.
Recommended Preparation For
Certificate of Completion
Upon completion, you receive a Quantum Academy certificate of completion. The course has no exam. The certificate is separate from our professional certifications and states your CPE credits, one for each 60 minutes of teaching. CISSP, SSCP and CISM holders can claim them with their certifying body. The credits also count toward renewing a Quantum Academy certification. Our CPE credits page explains how to claim them.
Recommended Reading
- Quantum Ready: the complete guide to PQC migration
- PQC Migration Framework: the open-source methodology referenced throughout this course
Pricing
| Option | Price |
|---|---|
| Online (self-paced) | US$349 |
| Live online (instructor-led) | US$529 |
| In-person (instructor-led) | US$699 |
| Foundation to PQCS, on-demand bundle (Foundation + PQCS on-demand training + exam) | US$2,649 |
| Foundation to PQCS, live online bundle (Foundation + PQCS live online training + exam) | US$3,329 |
| Foundation to PQCS, in-person bundle (Foundation + PQCS training + exam) | US$3,999 |
All prices are in US dollars.
Who this course is for
Security professionals, IT managers, compliance officers, risk analysts, software developers, enterprise architects, and business leaders who need a grounded introduction to post-quantum cryptography. No prior quantum computing or advanced cryptography knowledge is required.
What you’ll be able to do afterward
- Explain how a cryptanalytically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) threatens current public-key cryptographic systems, including RSA, ECC, and Diffie-Hellman
- Identify which systems and data in an organization are vulnerable to quantum-enabled attacks, including harvest-now-decrypt-later (HNDL) and trust-now-forge-later (TNFL) scenarios
- Describe the NIST post-quantum algorithms and their intended use cases: ML-KEM (formerly CRYSTALS-Kyber), ML-DSA (formerly CRYSTALS-Dilithium), SLH-DSA (formerly SPHINCS+), and FN-DSA (formerly FALCON), still in standardization as FIPS 206
- Outline the regulatory and compliance environment for PQC adoption, including CNSA 2.0, the EU coordinated implementation roadmap and NIS2, and sector-specific mandates
- Articulate the business case for starting PQC migration planning now, even while CRQC timelines remain uncertain
- Apply Mosca’s inequality as a decision framework for migration timing
What you leave with
When you finish, we email you the course handbook, a PDF of every slide with notes that explain it in full. We also include a PDF copy of Quantum Ready. The handbook is yours to keep.
Enrollment includes 180 days of access to the online on-demand course. Where that course is not yet published, the 180 days start on the day it is.
Where this course fits
Nothing is required. Introduction to Quantum Security covers the same topics in a free one-hour course, if you want an overview first. The certification track continues to PQCS Specialist Training, and we strongly recommend taking this course before it. PQCS is the gateway credential. The Manager, Architect, and Validator tracks all require an active PQCS certification, so managers and architects take it too.
Why we teach this
The course is built on the Applied Quantum PQC Migration Framework. Its author, Marin Ivezic, is one of the practitioners who teach here. The framework is published openly under Creative Commons at pqcframework.org. The people who teach this course run migration programs inside organizations today. The course covers the problems they meet in that work.
About this program
Quantum Academy credentials are private professional credentials issued by Quantum Academy, a trade name of Post-Quantum Institute. They are not government-issued licenses, accredited degrees, or academic credit, and earning one does not guarantee employment, promotion, regulatory approval, or any other specific outcome.
Quantum Academy programs are educational and informational only, and are not legal, compliance, or engineering advice.
