In fact, with “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks in play, those threat are a lot closer than many board, C-suite, and even CISOs might think — and it’s causing some federal governments to consider mandates for quantum-resistant encryption.

To help prepare for that uncertain future, industry experts recommend boards, CEOs, general counsels, CFOs, compliance and risk executives, and senior security executives begin putting in place strategies, policies, and procedures, and launch a crypto-agility model to prepare the enterprise’s defenses whenever the so-called cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQCs) come online, be in it five, seven, ten or more years down the road.

Here is a practical guide steps CISOs, their teams, and members of their C-suites can take now to prepare the enterprise for the quantum computing paradigm shift.