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Cryptographic agility is gaining attention due to its crucial role in maintaining cryptographic security in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. However, despite its increasing importance, the term cryptographic agility remains vaguely defined and there is no clear consensus on its exact meaning. This lack of clarity poses a challenge since the need for agility becomes more urgent as new cryptographic vulnerabilities and advanced computing threats emerge, emphasizing the need for a systematic approach to clarify and refine the notion on cryptographic agility. In this paper, we systematize the concept of cryptographic agility by providing three research contributions. First, we review current definitions across academic and gray literature, identifying six distinct categories to differentiate every aspect within the definitions. Second, we synthesize these insights to establish a comprehensive, canonical definition of cryptographic agility. Third, we explore the relationship between cryptographic agility and the related concepts cryptographic versatility and interoperability. In our discussion, we examine the relevance of cryptographic agility, highlight its trade-offs with complexity, assess its individual applicability, and illustrate its various contexts by offering an additional application-specific definition. Our work provides a new perspective on cryptographic agility and related concepts, based on systematical research to clarify and enhance its future use., Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure, 6 tables

With the advancement of quantum computing, the transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is becoming increasingly critical to maintain the security of modern dependable infrastructural systems. This paper presents a novel approach to gain insight into the structure of cryptographic migration problems, using a semi-formal model to capture the inherent dependencies and complexities of such transitions. Using classical mathematical results from combinatorics, probability theory, and combinatorial analysis, we assess the challenges of migrating large cryptographic IT-infrastructures and prove that -- in a suitable sense -- cryptographic migration has a certain expected complexity. Furthermore, we analyze the proposed model in terms of real-world patterns as well as its practical applicability, and discuss difficulties that arise when trying to model real-world migration projects. This work sets the stage for future advances in both the theoretical understanding and practical implementation of cryptographic migration strategies in the post-quantum era.

Networks such as the Internet are essential for our connected world. Quantum computing poses a threat to this heterogeneous infrastructure since it threatens fundamental security mechanisms. Therefore, a migration to post-quantum-cryptography (PQC) is necessary for networks and their components. At the moment, there is little knowledge on how such migrations should be structured and implemented in practice. Our systematic literature review addresses migration approaches for IP networks towards PQC. It surveys papers about the migration process and exemplary real-world software system migrations. On the process side, we found that terminology, migration steps, and roles are not defined precisely or consistently across the literature. Still, we identified four major phases and appropriate substeps which we matched with also emerging archetypes of roles. In terms of real-world migrations, we see that reports used several different PQC implementations and hybrid solutions for migrations of systems belonging to a wide range of system types. Across all papers we noticed three major challenges for adopters: missing experience of PQC and a high realization effort, concerns about the security of the upcoming system, and finally, high complexity. Our findings indicate that recent standardization efforts already push quantum-safe networking forward. However, the literature is still not in consensus about definitions and best practices. Implementations are mostly experimental and not necessarily practical, leading to an overall chaotic situation. To better grasp this fast moving field of (applied) research, our systematic literature review provides a comprehensive overview of its current state and serves as a starting point for delving into the matter of PQC migration., Comment: 2 figures, 12 tables, 21 pages