Quantum Transition Execution
Infrastructure for Defense
The execution layer the DoD is missing.
The Department of Defense has standards, timelines, and guidance for post-quantum cryptography. What it does not have is a way to execute quantum transition across real systems at scale.
CISA PQC Product Categories Now Published
Per Executive Order 14306 (“Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” June 2025), CISA and NSA have published product categories where PQC-capable solutions are widely available. Federal agencies should acquire only PQC-capable products in these categories, including PaaS/IaaS cloud, web browsers, messaging, and endpoint security.
All implementations must meet FIPS 203, FIPS 204, and FIPS 205 standards. The 2035 federal migration deadline is now backed by Executive Order.
Qryptonic’s role: Q-Scout 26 identifies which of your systems fall under CISA’s listed categories and maps your migration path to compliance. Q-Strike 26 validates readiness under adversarial conditions before production transition.
Why Quantum Breaks Existing DoD Execution Models
Quantum risk behaves differently from prior cyber threats. Traditional security models assume real-time detection and response. Quantum threats operate on fundamentally different timelines.
Silent Accumulation
Adversaries harvest encrypted data today for future quantum decryption. This "harvest now, decrypt later" activity is invisible to traditional monitoring and creates irreversible exposure that compounds daily.
Infrastructure-Deep Vulnerability
The risk lives below the application layer, embedded in cryptographic foundations that underpin communications, weapons systems, and command infrastructure. Surface-level security measures cannot address threats at this depth.
No Quick Remediation Path
Quantum-resistant transition requires years of coordinated planning, testing, and execution across interconnected systems. Patch-style remediation does not exist. Emergency responses will fail.
Legacy System Reality
Systems designed decades ago will remain operational for decades more. Many cannot be refactored, replaced, or made cryptographically agile. They must be protected as-is or replaced entirely.
Traditional ATO processes, compliance checklists, and point tools cannot carry this burden. The execution model must change.
What the DoD Is Missing
Between policy intent and operational programs, a critical layer does not exist. Leadership issues directives. Programs attempt compliance. But the connective infrastructure that enables coordinated execution at scale is absent.
No Authoritative Inventory
There is no persistent source of truth for where cryptography lives across systems, programs, and domains. Discovery efforts are point-in-time snapshots that become outdated immediately. Dependencies remain unmapped. Blind spots are systemic.
No Shared Risk Truth
Programs assess quantum risk independently, creating blind spots and misaligned prioritization. What one program considers critical, another may ignore entirely. No mechanism exists to reconcile these views into actionable truth.
No Rehearsal Capability
There is no way to pressure-test quantum transitions before they occur in production environments. Failures are discovered during execution, not before. Contingency plans remain theoretical until tested under adversarial conditions.
This is not a tools problem. This is an execution infrastructure problem.
The Quantum Execution Layer
A quantum execution layer is not software. It is not a product. It is not a vendor solution searching for a problem.
It is operational infrastructure that enables the DoD to execute quantum transition at the scale and complexity demanded by real defense systems.
It is the missing connective tissue between policy and programs. Between intent and execution. Between plans and measurable operational readiness.
Maintain Cryptographic Truth Over Time
A persistent, authoritative record of cryptographic reality that remains accurate as systems evolve, programs change, and contractors rotate. Not a snapshot. A living system of record.
Translate Standards Into Action
Operationalize NIST guidance and DoD policy across systems that cannot be easily modernized or replaced. Bridge the gap between what standards require and what legacy infrastructure can support.
Enable Rehearsal and Confidence
Allow transitions to be tested under realistic constraints. Let failure modes be discovered in controlled environments. Enable decisions to be made with evidence, not assumptions.
Survive Leadership Turnover
Create institutional continuity that persists across administrations, programs, and contractors. Knowledge cannot be lost when key personnel rotate or contracts expire.
“Every major military capability eventually requires dedicated execution infrastructure. Logistics. Command and control. Intelligence fusion. Quantum transition is no different. The layer will emerge. The question is whether it emerges in time.”
Cryptographic Ground Truth
Q-Scout is not discovery tooling. It is not a scanning product. It is not another inventory system that produces reports and then goes stale.
Q-Scout is the system of record for cryptographic reality across defense programs.
Core Capabilities
- Persistent visibility that maintains accuracy across multi-year transition timelines
- Program-agnostic operation across primes, subs, classification levels, and operational domains
- Legacy-first design for environments where documentation is incomplete and refactoring is impossible
- Dependency mapping that reveals cryptographic relationships between systems
Q-Scout establishes the ground truth upon which all quantum execution depends. Without accurate, persistent inventory, every downstream decision is built on assumptions that decay over time.
Execution Rehearsal
Q-Strike is not testing. It is not validation. It is rehearsal under adversarial assumptions. Just as military units rehearse operations before deployment, quantum transition requires repeated practice under realistic constraints.
Reveal Failure Modes Before Contact
Expose cascade effects, integration conflicts, and catastrophic dependencies before they occur in production.
Rehearse Recovery and Contingency Paths
Validate rollback procedures and response plans before they are needed. Test whether contingency plans actually work under pressure.
Generate Decision-Grade Evidence
Produce artifacts leaders can defend under operational and congressional scrutiny. Convert assumptions into facts backed by empirical rehearsal data.
Failures in rehearsal are learning. Failures in production are mission compromise.
Why One Without the Other Fails
Inventory Without Rehearsal
Creates blind confidence. You know what exists, but not what will happen when you change it. Plans look complete on paper but collapse under execution pressure.
Rehearsal Without Inventory
Creates noise. You test scenarios without knowing if they reflect reality. Results cannot be trusted because the foundation is uncertain.
Together, Q-Scout and Q-Strike enable something the DoD does not currently have:
Measurable Quantum Readiness
Not theoretical readiness. Not compliance readiness. Operational readiness grounded in evidence.
Fit Within Real DoD Constraints
The quantum execution layer works within existing reality. It does not require organizational transformation, new appropriations lines, or changes to acquisition pathways.
Programs of Record
Supports PM and PEO decision-making without altering acquisition pathways. Integrates with existing program structures and reporting requirements.
Prime and Sub Ecosystems
Operates across contractor boundaries while respecting IP and contractual structures. Enables coordination without forcing disclosure.
Classified Environments
Maintains separation where required while enabling authorized visibility. Works within existing classification frameworks and security protocols.
Non-Refactorable Systems
Enables quantum readiness even where cryptographic agility is physically impossible. Protects legacy systems that cannot be modernized.
This is not transformation. It is enablement of what must happen anyway.
What This Enables Over Time
With an execution layer in place, outcomes become inevitable rather than aspirational. The infrastructure creates conditions for success that persist across leadership changes and budget cycles.
Fewer Surprises
Critical failures are discovered through rehearsal, not crisis. Programs enter execution with evidence-backed confidence rather than hope.
Defensible Prioritization
Resources align to real risk, supported by evidence from actual systems. Budget debates are grounded in operational reality, not competing opinions.
Continuity Across Administrations
Institutional knowledge persists beyond individual leaders and contracts. Transitions do not reset progress or lose critical context.
Deterrence During Transition
Adversaries face uncertainty, not confidence, during the quantum window. They cannot predict what will break or when. Uncertainty is deterrence.
The Only Sensible Next Step
Not enterprise deployment. Not procurement commitment. Not a multi-year contract before validation.
A bounded execution proof against real constraints.
What This Looks Like
- 1.A defined inventory slice — Establish cryptographic ground truth for a representative system or program of record
- 2.A controlled rehearsal scenario — Pressure-test transition paths and failure modes before production execution
- 3.A reusable briefing artifact — Decision-quality evidence that scales upward through leadership and oversight
The proof demonstrates capability without requiring enterprise commitment. It produces evidence, not promises.
Without an execution layer, quantum transition produces plans and reports.
With one, it produces decisions leaders can stand behind.
Contract Information
Team members with prior clearances from NSA, CIA, DIA, Air Force
US-only data residency, air-gapped assessment capability, ITAR-compatible
CMMC L2 mapped, NIST 800-53, NIST 800-171, CNSA 2.0, EO 14306 / CISA PQC guidance
Execute or Accept Risk
The quantum threat is not theoretical. The timeline is not distant. The harvest is happening now. Every day without execution infrastructure is a day of accumulated exposure that cannot be reversed.
The DoD has standards. It has roadmaps. It has congressional mandates. What it needs is the capability to execute.