Cloudflare has unveiled what it describes as the first fully post-quantum-ready Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform, extending post-quantum encryption support across the Cloudflare One ecosystem.
The company said the update adds post-quantum protection to key wide-area networking (WAN) use cases, including Cloudflare IPsec and the Cloudflare One Appliance, completing post-quantum support across its SASE stack.
Cloudflare said this now covers its zero-trust access, secure Web gateway, and WAN-as-a-service capabilities within Cloudflare One.
The announcement last week is part of Cloudflare’s ongoing rollout of its post-quantum protection solutions. Last year, it had debuted a cloud-native, post-quantum secure Web gateway and zero-trust solution.
As quantum computing becomes a reality, it could threaten many of the existing encryption standards that undergird current digital systems that protect sensitive healthcare, banking, and personal data.
In addition, Cloudflare warned that threat actors are launching “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks, collecting encrypted state secrets, financial records, and health data to decrypt when quantum computing capabilities improve.
Studies suggest that the migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) is a complex, multi-year undertaking. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has set a timeline for the global transition to PQC, with 2030 set as the date for the official deprecation of legacy algorithms like RSA-2048, ECC-256, and 112-bit symmetric keys.
As part of its announcement, Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince said the company’s goal is to make post-quantum security the default, without the need for hardware upgrades, complex configurations, or added cost.
According to Cloudflare, its IPsec enables high-availability routing with IPsec traffic automatic rerouted to healthy data centres if one is unavailable.
It also promises to protect against “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks by securing network flows with post-quantum encryption. Also on the cards: Standards-based interoperability that supports cross-vendor collaboration and security.
