PQC Readiness (Quantum-Vulnerable Public-Key Cryptography)
ID |
go.pqc_readiness |
Severity |
info |
Remediation Complexity |
high |
Remediation Risk |
medium |
Remediation Effort |
high |
Resource |
Cryptography |
Language |
Go |
Tags |
ASVS50:v11.2.1, ASVS50:v11.6.1, CWE:327, NIST.IR.8547, OWASP:2025:A04, crypto, pqc, quantum |
Rationale
Classical public-key algorithms — RSA, elliptic-curve schemes (ECDSA, EdDSA, ECDH), finite-field Diffie-Hellman and DSA — are broken by Shor’s algorithm on a cryptographically-relevant quantum computer. Unlike key-size weaknesses, this is not mitigated by a larger key: a perfectly-sized RSA-3072 or ECDSA P-256 key is still a migration target. Confidentiality and key-establishment uses are additionally exposed to "harvest now, decrypt later" — traffic captured today can be decrypted once such a machine exists. NIST IR 8547 deprecates 112-bit-equivalent public-key cryptography by 2030 and disallows it after 2035.
In Go, quantum-vulnerable public-key keys are generated from the classical crypto/* packages — regardless of key size:
rsa.GenerateKey(rand.Reader, 3072) // Shor-broken, must migrate
ecdsa.GenerateKey(elliptic.P256(), rand.Reader) // Shor-broken, must migrateRemediation
Remediation branches on the cryptographic primitive — conflating Shor’s and Grover’s threats produces wrong advice:
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Public-key (RSA, ECC/ECDSA/EdDSA, DH/ECDH, DSA) — broken by Shor: there is no key-size fix. Migrate to a NIST-standardized post-quantum scheme: ML-KEM (FIPS 203) for key establishment/encryption and ML-DSA (FIPS 204) for signatures, with SLH-DSA (FIPS 205) as a conservative signature alternative. During the transition, prefer a hybrid (classical + PQC) construction so a break in either component is tolerated.
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Symmetric ciphers and hashes — weakened by Grover: these are hardenable in place by doubling sizes (AES-256, SHA-384/SHA-512); they are not flagged by this rule.
Plan the migration against the regulatory timeline (NIST IR 8547: deprecated 2030, disallowed 2035; EU milestones 2026/2030/2035) and prioritize long-lived confidential data first.
References
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CWE-327 : Use of a Broken or Risky Cryptographic Algorithm.
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NIST IR 8547 : Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards.