One day, someday soon, the world will meet the next milestone in computer science, and when it arrives, cybersecurity will never be the same, forcing organizations and cloud service providers to radically rethink how they secure their data and protect it from increasingly sophisticated threat actors.

Called “Q-day,” this moment will mark the point in human development when quantum computing will have evolved to the point that traditional RSA encryption will have been rendered obsolete, radically shortening the time it takes to discover the right encryption key from millenia to seconds. This immense computing power will allow threat actors to take full control over any hard drive in the world – and, more importantly, any data stored on it.

Given that hard-disk drive (HDD) life cycles run approximately five years, organizations and cloud service providers can’t wait until after Q-day to take action. Instead, they should ensure that their high-capacity enterprise hard drives include the latest safeguards before quantum computing becomes mainstream and a standard weapon in threat actors’ toolbelts.

The greatest code breaking machine in history

Quantum computers are much faster than networked computers and supercomputers at certain tasks, allowing them to solve problems that remain practically impossible for modern machines. Already, scientists around the world are using quantum computing to create more accurate climate change models, optimize power grid optimization and better understand how black holes behave.

Unfortunately, this can also include breaking the encryption algorithms currently used to protect sensitive data. What used to take a supercomputer a millenia, could be accomplished by quantum computers in mere minutes. Deciphering encryption keys at that speed could give threat actors control over storage, by forging encrypted digital signatures on firmware updates.

Hackers and other adversaries may not yet have access to quantum computing capabilities to defeat RSA encryption and other long-established safeguards, but that day may be coming soon. According to the Global Risk Institute, there’s a one-in-three chance that Q-day happens before 2035. This is a problem because HDD life cycles typically span well past five years while organizations are starting to create data retention policies that span decades. This means that the drives you deploy today may still be in use when Q-day arrives, continuing to store highly sensitive data. However, many threat actors are not even waiting that long. New harvest now, decrypt later attacks are keeping many CISOs up at night as they vacuum up encrypted data now in hopes that they will be able to read it in the future.

Protection from quantum computing attacks starts today

Fortunately, post-quantum cryptography (PQC) can be implemented now to help protect enterprise data, infrastructure, and workflows today and into the future. Importantly, PQC doesn’t rely on quantum computing today. It’s simply strengthening encryption and key management directly into the foundation of data infrastructure, rendering HDDs stronger today and in the future.

Here are three things you can do today to prepare for Q-day:

Plan PQC adoption today

The good news is that organizations don't have to tackle this all at once. By planning ahead, enterprises and cloud service providers can spread out replacement cycles and costs over years, rather than facing a rush to swap out every HDD under pressure. Starting early gives you the flexibility to upgrade at your own pace, integrate PQC-enabled drives naturally into refresh cycles, and stay ahead of evolving standards. The key is choosing a storage partner that's already invested in Q-day readiness and aligned with U.S. Department of Homeland Security and National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST) guidelines and best practices.

Get a handle on impacted infrastructure

You can’t secure what you don’t know about. That’s true today and it will continue to be true after Q-day. Imagine if you take all the right precautions and then find out that your storage network is still vulnerable because a long-forgotten, unupdated drive is still hanging out on the network. Organizations should make sure they are cataloging long-lived storage assets today, so they can be replaced with PQC-enabled drives as necessary in a managed upgrade schedule.

Modernize key management infrastructure

Solutions may cause more problems than the challenge they were implemented to solve. This is especially true in the IT world where simple equipment upgrades and network migrations often break existing workflows if all the necessary precautions are not taken. Organizations should confirm that current APIs and orchestration frameworks can handle post-quantum keys and certificates, hybrid certificates and centralized key management systems. Failure to do so can make data unavailable to users, applications and AI, disrupting operations at a time when you need to be up and running.

Preparing for Q-day today

Quantum computing is advancing rapidly, and the ability to break traditional encryption keys is moving from theoretical to practical. The smart move is to get ahead of it. PQC-enabled drives are on the way, giving organizations a clear path to start strengthening their storage environments now. By planning ahead – building a reliable inventory of assets that need upgrading and modernizing key management infrastructure – enterprises and cloud service providers can integrate PQC-enabled drives into natural replacement cycles. The result: when Q-day arrives, your data is already protected and your organization is ready for a post-quantum world.