You’ve probably heard that quantum computers will someday break today’s encryption, and you’ve probably filed it under problems for later. Microsoft just moved later closer.
On June 30, 2026, Mark Russinovich, the chief technology officer of Microsoft Azure, wrote that the company is accelerating its Quantum Safe Program. The goal is to move its products and services to post-quantum cryptography (new encryption designed to hold up against quantum computers) by 2029. His post says Microsoft believes quantum computers capable of breaking current encryption “could arrive sooner than previously expected.” Microsoft hasn’t named a specific breakthrough behind the change. Russinovich told BleepingComputer it was a “proactive, risk-informed decision,” so nobody is claiming your data is readable today.
The reason a 2029 date matters to you now is a tactic called “harvest now, decrypt later.” Attackers copy encrypted data today and store it until a quantum computer can open it. Say someone captures the encrypted traffic between your office and your cloud apps this year. Right now it’s unreadable. If they can wait, it becomes a stack of files they can open later, and whether that hurts depends on how long the information stays sensitive. Tax filings and signed contracts are still worth stealing in ten years.
What Microsoft says to do first
Microsoft’s advice for other organizations is mostly housekeeping. The June post lists four items. Assign an owner and milestones for a multi-year transition. Build new systems so the encryption can be swapped out later. Keep a living inventory of where cryptography is used. Move to TLS 1.3, the current version of the protocol that secures network connections. Russinovich writes that the hardest part is finding where cryptography already exists in your environment.
On October 8, 2026, Microsoft’s security team added a related post on certificates, the digital IDs that prove a website or device is who it claims to be. Most organizations, it says, don’t have a complete inventory of the systems that depend on them.
What I would do
For a company with 25 or 100 people, I’d read that list as a housekeeping assignment. Microsoft is working on its own products. Your exposure sits in the things Microsoft doesn’t ship: the firewall nobody has updated in years and the line-of-business software from a vendor you haven’t heard from lately.
I would start with the inventory. List every system that holds sensitive data, then ask each vendor in writing for their plan for post-quantum encryption. A vendor with an answer is in good shape. A vendor with no answer has told you something too.
The second step is one you may already be doing, which is keeping systems on versions the vendor still supports and replacing the ones that have aged out. Updates like these only reach products that are still supported. I’d skip any pitch for a quantum product this year, since the first job is knowing what you have.
Later has a date on it now, at least for Microsoft’s products. If you’d like help building that inventory, Xentric can walk through your systems with you and flag the ones that need a conversation with their vendor. That part is up to you.