In November 2023, the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) published a white paper titled “Next steps in preparing for post-quantum cryptography,” building on its 2020 white paper on quantum-safe cryptography. The updated guidance helped system and risk owners in commercial enterprises, public sector organizations, and critical national infrastructure plan for the migration to post-quantum cryptography (PQC), according to the NCSC publication.
The paper endorsed specific algorithms for general use, recommending ML-KEM (Kyber) and ML-DSA (Dilithium) chosen by NIST for standardization. It stated these were suitable for securing personal, enterprise, and government information at the Official tier. The NCSC advised that technical system and risk owners should begin or continue financial planning for updating their systems to use PQC.
On the question of hybrid key establishment schemes combining PQC with traditional algorithms, the paper indicated that while this could serve as a bridge, the ultimate goal remained complete migration to quantum-resistant algorithms. The paper was updated in August 2024 to reflect NIST’s publication of three algorithm standards.