Microsoft Warns of Quantum-Era Threats: Expand Your Cybersecurity Modeling

Organizations are being advised to expand their threat modeling exercises in preparation for potential quantum-era attacks, according to Microsoft. The company is warning that the transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) requires more than just replacing a few encryption algorithms.

Microsoft researchers Michael Howard and Simone Curzi explained in a recent blog post that building a complete cryptographic inventory can be difficult, as automated scanning tools may overlook controls supplied by operating systems, cloud platforms, third-party frameworks, and hardware.

Threat modeling can help close these gaps by forcing development and security teams to trace how data moves through an application, where trust boundaries exist, and which security controls protect critical assets. Teams should record the algorithms, protocol versions, cipher suites, key sizes, and implementation providers used by each component.