Post-quantum encryption is a new generation of encryption designed to protect data from quantum computers. Today's encryption relies on math problems that quantum computers will solve easily. Post-quantum encryption uses different math problems that are hard for both regular computers and quantum computers. It is the upgrade from locks that quantum computers can pick to locks they cannot.
If you have heard the term "post-quantum encryption" and thought it sounded complicated, you are not alone. The term itself sounds like science fiction. But the concept is surprisingly simple once you strip away the jargon. This guide explains post-quantum encryption using only plain language and everyday analogies. No math. No equations. No background in computer science required. By the end of this article, you will understand what post-quantum encryption is, why it matters to your organization right now, and what you can do about it today.
Think of Encryption as a Lock on Your Data
Imagine your sensitive data — emails, video calls, medical records, financial transactions — is inside a locked safe. The lock is encryption. Without the key, nobody can open the safe and read the data inside. This is how encryption protects virtually everything on the internet today: banking, messaging, email, video calls, cloud storage, and more.
Now, here is the critical part. The lock on your safe works because picking it requires solving an incredibly difficult puzzle. Today's encryption uses puzzles based on multiplying very large numbers together. Multiplying two huge numbers is easy. But figuring out which two numbers were multiplied to get the result is absurdly hard for regular computers. We are talking about puzzles that would take every computer on Earth longer than the age of the universe to solve. That is what makes current encryption secure. The lock is too hard to pick.
Quantum computers change everything. A quantum computer is a fundamentally different kind of machine. It does not just compute faster — it computes differently. For certain specific types of puzzles, including the exact puzzles that protect today's encryption, a quantum computer can find the answer almost effortlessly. Imagine a lock that would take a regular lockpick a trillion years to open, but a special quantum lockpick can open in minutes. That is the threat. The lock has not gotten weaker. The lockpick has gotten impossibly stronger.
Why This Matters Now — Not in 10 Years
The most common reaction when people hear about quantum threats to encryption is: "But quantum computers are years away. Why should I care now?" This is a natural reaction, and it is based on a misunderstanding of how the threat actually works. The threat is not just about what quantum computers will do in the future. It is about what adversaries are doing right now because they know quantum computers are coming.
Imagine a burglar who discovers that a bank's vault locks will be replaceable with a new master key that will be available in 10 years. The burglar cannot open the vault today. But the burglar can photograph every vault in every bank today, record every detail of every lock, and store all of this information until the master key becomes available. When it does, the burglar opens every vault retroactively.
This is exactly what is happening right now with encrypted data. Intelligence agencies and sophisticated threat actors are recording encrypted internet traffic — including video calls, emails, and file transfers — in bulk. They store this encrypted data cheaply and wait. When quantum computers become powerful enough to break today's encryption, they will decrypt everything they have been storing. This strategy has a name: harvest now, decrypt later (HNDL).
The National Security Agency (NSA) has publicly confirmed that this is happening. The NSA issued a warning in 2022 telling organizations to begin transitioning to quantum-resistant encryption because adversaries are already harvesting encrypted communications for future decryption. This is not a conspiracy theory or a marketing scare tactic. It is an official warning from the United States' signals intelligence agency.
The harvest-now-decrypt-later timeline
What Post-Quantum Encryption Actually Does
Post-quantum encryption solves this problem by using different locks — locks that quantum computers cannot pick. Instead of basing security on the math puzzles that quantum computers can solve (factoring large numbers and computing discrete logarithms), post-quantum encryption uses entirely different mathematical foundations that are hard for both regular computers and quantum computers.
Think of it this way. Today's encryption lock is based on a specific type of puzzle that happens to have a shortcut on quantum computers. Post-quantum encryption replaces that puzzle with different types of puzzles where no quantum shortcut exists. Scientists have studied these new puzzle types extensively, and there is strong mathematical evidence that quantum computers cannot solve them any faster than regular computers.
The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) spent eight years evaluating dozens of proposed post-quantum encryption algorithms. In 2024, NIST published three official standards: FIPS 203 (ML-KEM, for key exchange), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA, for digital signatures), and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA, for hash-based signatures). These are not experimental. They are production-ready government standards that organizations can deploy today.
Going back to our analogy: NIST spent eight years testing every proposed new lock design, had the world's best locksmiths try to pick them, and certified three designs as ready for production use. These are the new locks. They work today. They are available today. The only question is whether your organization is using them.
The Three Types of Post-Quantum Locks (No Math, We Promise)
NIST standardized three different types of post-quantum encryption, each based on a different kind of hard puzzle. The reason for having three is simple: diversification. If scientists unexpectedly find a shortcut for one type of puzzle, the other two types still protect your data. It is the same principle behind not putting all your eggs in one basket.
Three independent puzzle families
V100 uses all three types to protect every video call. This means an attacker would need to simultaneously break three different kinds of mathematical puzzles — lattice problems, NTRU problems, and hash functions — to compromise a single V100 session. Breaking one or two yields nothing. The session key is protected unless all three are defeated. This three-family architecture is the gold standard for post-quantum security.
What Actually Changes for You as a User
Here is the good news: from a user experience perspective, nothing changes. Post-quantum encryption does not make your video calls slower, your messages harder to send, or your websites harder to load. The new locks work just as fast as the old locks — in some cases, even faster. The only thing that changes is which math runs behind the scenes when your device establishes an encrypted connection.
When you join a V100 video call, for example, the post-quantum key exchange adds approximately 80 microseconds to the connection setup. That is 0.00008 seconds. For context, a human eye blink takes about 300,000 microseconds. The post-quantum key exchange happens 3,750 times faster than a blink. You will never notice it.
The slightly larger key sizes (about 1.2 kilobytes more per connection) are equally invisible. A single second of video at 720p generates roughly 50,000 to 100,000 bytes of data. An extra 1,200 bytes of key material is less than one percent of one second of video. The performance excuses for not deploying post-quantum encryption evaporated years ago.
Who Is Already Using Post-Quantum Encryption
Post-quantum encryption is not a theoretical technology waiting in a lab. Major companies are already deploying it in production products that billions of people use. Google Chrome and Apple iMessage implemented hybrid post-quantum key exchange in 2024, meaning that web browsing in Chrome and messaging in iMessage already use post-quantum algorithms for key agreement. Signal, the encrypted messaging app, added post-quantum key exchange in September 2024. Cloudflare deployed post-quantum TLS across its content delivery network.
For video conferencing, V100 is the only platform that has deployed post-quantum encryption in production. V100 uses ML-KEM-768 for key exchange, ML-DSA-65 and FALCON-512 for digital signatures, and SLH-DSA for long-lived artifact signatures. Every V100 video call is protected by all three post-quantum algorithm families by default. There is no opt-in, no configuration, and no feature trade-offs.
The major video conferencing platforms — Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex — have not deployed post-quantum encryption as of April 2026. None have published specific migration timelines. Their key exchange algorithms (ECDH P-256 or X25519) remain vulnerable to quantum computers. The complete guide to quantum safe video conferencing provides a detailed platform-by-platform comparison.
What You Should Do About It
If you have read this far, you understand the basics: today's encryption locks will be pickable by quantum computers, adversaries are already copying your locked data to open later, and new post-quantum locks exist and are ready to use. The question is what you should do about it. The answer depends on how sensitive your data is and how long it needs to stay private.
If your data has long-term sensitivity (healthcare, legal, financial, government, IP): You should be migrating to post-quantum encryption now. Every day of delay is another day of sensitive data being recorded with quantum-breakable encryption. The transition does not need to be organization-wide overnight. Start with your most sensitive communications — executive meetings, board discussions, legal consultations, patient interactions — and move them to a quantum-safe platform like V100. Then expand from there.
If your data has short-term sensitivity (casual conversations, non-confidential meetings): The urgency is lower, but the transition is still inevitable. NIST has recommended that all organizations migrate to post-quantum algorithms. The question is not whether you will switch, but when. Starting now means a smoother, more gradual transition rather than a panicked migration when the first CRQC is announced.
For everyone: Ask your software vendors whether they use post-quantum encryption. Ask your video conferencing provider. Ask your email provider. Ask your cloud storage provider. If the answer is "not yet" or "we are evaluating," your data is accumulating quantum risk. The analysis of Zoom's encryption shows what typical vendor readiness looks like.
V100 makes it easy to start. The live demo lets you experience post-quantum encrypted video in under two minutes. The free trial includes full PQ-E2E encryption on every call. No credit card required. Your first quantum-safe video call is two minutes away.
The Bottom Line
Post-quantum encryption is not complicated. It is simply a new generation of locks designed for a new generation of threats. Today's locks will be broken by quantum computers. Post-quantum locks will not. The technology exists, it is standardized, it is deployed in production, and it adds no perceptible overhead. The only thing standing between your data and quantum protection is the decision to use it.
The harvest-now-decrypt-later threat means the clock is already ticking. Every video call, email, and file transfer encrypted with today's algorithms is a ticking time bomb with a fuse length equal to the time until quantum computers arrive. When that fuse runs out, everything recorded is opened at once. Post-quantum encryption cuts the fuse. It makes the recording worthless even when quantum computers arrive. But it can only protect data that is encrypted with post-quantum algorithms from the moment the algorithms are deployed. It cannot retroactively protect data that was already encrypted with classical algorithms.
That is why "later" is too late. The protection must be in place before the data is generated. Every day that passes without post-quantum encryption is another day of data that will be permanently vulnerable.
Try post-quantum encryption on your next video call
V100 is the only video platform with three post-quantum algorithm families. No configuration, no feature trade-offs, no quantum risk. See the green PQ-E2E badge on your first call. Free trial — no credit card required.