With quantum computers threatening to compromise today’s encryption in just a few years, businesses around the world are working to audit and remediate their exposure. Global bank Santander bank began its quantum computing audit program by first acknowledging a core problem: they didn’t actually know what cryptography they were using across their systems. To address this, Santander Global Tech head of quantum tech Mark Carney told a recent SANS Institute conference, the bank launched a discovery exercise, mapping out cryptographic assets and aligning them with evolving standards. They partnered with Microsoft and GitHub to extend CodeQL, enabling static code analysis that could identify weak or outdated cryptography hidden in code, despite variations in naming and APIs. In parallel, they built dynamic monitoring tools using eBPF, which allowed them to tap into network traffic, extract cipher suites, handshake details, and key usage, and then aggregate the data. This revealed, for example, that about a quarter of traffic in their lab environment was already negotiating hybrid post quantum computing (PQC) connections. You can listen to all of the Quantum Minute episodes at https://QuantumMinute.com. The Quantum Minute is brought to you by Applied Quantum, a leading consultancy and solutions provider specializing in quantum computing, quantum cryptography, quantum communication, and quantum AI. Learn more at https://AppliedQuantum.com.

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