After a long process started in 2016, today NIST announced the first standardized cryptographic algorithms designed to protect IT systems against future quantum attacks. Here is the list of the first winners of the competition:

For digital signatures:

• CRYSTALS-Dilithium
• Falcon
• SPHINCS+

For KEMs:

• CRYSTALS-KYBER

Additionally, the following candidate KEM algorithms will advance to the 4th and final round, even though they have not been standardized yet:

• BIKE
• Classic McEliece
• HQC
• SIKE

This is exciting news, as it marks a fundamental milestone in a very long process that the cryptography and security community has been following for many years. Quantum computers are rapidly advancing to a state of maturity that will allow soon to solve real-world problems in chemistry, physics, logistics, etc. Although cryptanalytic applications of quantum computers are probably still far away, given the long lifespan of security applications and the slow process of updating IT systems, businesses and governments have started to worry about quantum attacks for a while already. What was holding many stakeholders off from proactively starting a quantum-resistant strategy for their products and services was the lack of accredited international cryptographic standards. Now this obstacle has been removed, so we expect (and we welcome) a wave of renewed interest in quantum-resistant applications.

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