Post-quantum encryption in tactical environments: Why MISTIG is built for the threat ahead
Adversaries are harvesting encrypted defence communications today. The threat isn't theoretical, it's already underway. MISTIG is built for the cryptographic environment of the next decade, not the last one.
The harvest now, decrypt later problem.
Quantum computing capable of breaking current public-key cryptography does not yet exist at scale. But the attack it enables is already happening. Nation-state adversaries are intercepting and storing encrypted communications today, military signals, intelligence assessments, command traffic with the explicit intention of decrypting them once quantum capability matures. The timeline for that maturity is contested, but estimates from NIST, GCHQ, and allied signals intelligence agencies range from five to fifteen years.
For long-lived defence intelligence, platform capabilities, sensor network architectures, operational doctrine that timeline is operationally significant. Intelligence that is classified today and decryptable in 2035 is not secure. It is deferred exposure.
What post-quantum cryptography actually means.
Current public-key cryptography, RSA, ECC, Diffie-Hellman relies on mathematical problems that are computationally infeasible for classical computers but tractable for quantum computers running Shor's algorithm. When sufficiently capable quantum computers exist, the encryption protecting the majority of today's secure communications becomes breakable.
Post-quantum cryptography refers to cryptographic algorithms designed to be resistant to attacks from both classical and quantum computers. In 2024, NIST finalised its first set of post-quantum cryptographic standards, CRYSTALS-Kyber for key encapsulation and CRYSTALS-Dilithium for digital signatures. These algorithms are the foundation of MISTIG's cryptographic architecture.
MISTIG's cryptographic architecture.
MISTIG implements post-quantum key encapsulation across all KANATA data flows sensor ingestion, inter-component communication, and operator output. Key management is entirely local to the platform, no key material is transmitted to or stored on external infrastructure.
“The question is not whether quantum-capable adversaries will eventually be able to decrypt today's communications. The question is whether the intelligence those communications contain will still matter when they do.”
Digital signatures on all data elements use post-quantum signature schemes, ensuring that injected or manipulated data cannot be made to appear authentic. Every packet flowing through the KANATA pipeline is authenticated at the cryptographic level, not just the network level.
The transition to post-quantum cryptography is not a future roadmap item for MISTIG. It is the current implementation. We made this decision at the architectural level in 2025 because retrofitting post-quantum cryptography into an existing system is orders of magnitude more complex than building for it from the start.
The window for action is now.
Tactical communications present a specific challenge for post-quantum cryptography: the algorithms are computationally more expensive than their classical equivalents, and tactical edge hardware operates under strict power and processing constraints.
MISTIG is optimised for edge execution of post-quantum cryptographic operations. The implementation runs within the SWaP constraints of KANATA's tactical hardware profile without compromising the end-to-end latency requirements of the fusion pipeline. Post-quantum security and sub-100ms latency are not mutually exclusive but achieving both requires purpose-built optimisation, not off-the-shelf implementation.
Architecture for national readiness.
Every month that a defence organisation delays transitioning to post-quantum cryptographic standards is a month of additional harvested communications that become retrospectively exposed. The asymmetry is stark: the cost of transitioning now is engineering effort. The cost of transitioning after a quantum-capable adversary exists is the retrospective exposure of everything encrypted before the transition.
MISTIG is built for the threat environment of the next decade. Canada's sovereign defence intelligence infrastructure should be too.
