Industry Use Case · Defense Industrial Base · Post-Quantum Ready, Continuously™
Post-Quantum Readiness for a Defense Industrial Base Supplier
A vendor-neutral readiness brief for CMMC-scoped suppliers that hold Controlled Unclassified Information, develop ITAR-controlled technical data, and sign software and firmware for fielded systems.
Company-reported · not independently audited
01 / Executive Summary
What a defense supplier buys, and why
A composite mid-tier defense supplier we call Calibre Defense Systems carries the same quantum-cryptography exposure as every contractor in the Defense Industrial Base that holds Controlled Unclassified Information, develops ITAR-controlled technical data, and signs software and firmware that ships into fielded systems.1 The difference is that the exposure is now a condition of doing business. The required CMMC level can become a prerequisite for contract award when included in the solicitation, and the CNSA 2.0 procurement gate is dated. Technical data harvested today is still sensitive when the platform it describes is still flying in 2040.
Qtonic Quantum Corp engages a defense supplier under a phased, vendor-neutral program that runs 12 to 18 months and begins with a scoped paid proof-of-concept. Deliverables include a cryptographic bill of materials, a hardware-backed demonstration and resource-estimate validation against the supplier’s deployed primitives, a five-phase migration roadmap built around hybrid X25519+ML-KEM-768 deployment, and an independent attestation from the Qtonic Quantum Lab signed with ML-DSA, the CNSA 2.0 signature family.
Regulatory pressure
CMMC is in phased rollout (Phase 1 live since Nov 2025); the required level can gate award when in the solicitation. The CNSA 2.0 procurement gate for new national-security-system acquisitions is dated January 1, 2027.
Threat signal
A March 31, 2026 neutral-atom resource estimate places ECC P-256 discrete log within ~26,000 physical qubits at a fast-architecture point. A resource estimate, not demonstrated capability.
Field baseline
Qtonic Quantum company-reported Fortune-1000 PQC readiness averages 18/100 across its governed engagements. Not independently audited.
The compliance window is already closing.The cryptographic primitives protecting CUI repositories, ITAR-controlled technical data, software and firmware signing keys, and vendor remote-access PKI are inside the CNSA 2.0 and NIST 2030–2035 transition window. The engagement retires them in order of risk, on a sequence that respects DoD acquisition cycles and CMMC assessment calendars.
1Calibre Defense Systems is a composite, illustrative defense supplier — not a real company and not based on any single operator. Industry incidents referenced relate to named, real organizations and are sourced solely to public reporting, SEC filings, and state breach notifications. See Notices.
02 / The Signal
Three papers, three regulators, one calendar
The trigger for board-level urgency is not a single paper. It is independent signals against regulatory clocks already running. On March 30, 2026, Google Quantum research team and co-authors published a resource estimate cutting the cost of breaking ECDLP-256 to fewer than 500,000 physical qubits on a superconducting architecture. The next day, a neutral-atom estimate (Caltech / Oratomic) placed P-256 discrete logs within roughly 26,000 physical qubits under fast-architecture assumptions, with RSA-2048 one to two orders longer. Both are resource estimates, not demonstrated capability against production systems. Harvest-now, decrypt-later attacks are pegged to that trajectory.
CMMC entered phased rollout on November 10, 2025. A contractor that cannot demonstrate the required level for an opportunity can be ineligible once that level is in the solicitation. CNSA 2.0 sets a procurement gate on January 1, 2027 for new national-security systems (ML-KEM-1024, ML-DSA-87), moving to exclusive signing use by 2030. DFARS 252.204-7012 and NIST SP 800-171 already obligate CUI protection, and NIST IR 8547 (initial public draft) describes deprecating quantum-vulnerable public-key cryptography after 2030.2
Milestone 1 of 8· select a marker to advance the timeline
2025
CMMC Phase 1 · DFARS 252.204-7012 · NIST SP 800-171 — already obligate CUI protection for in-scope contractors.
2026
CMMC Phase 2 · C3PAO third-party assessments (Nov 2026) come into scope.
2027
CNSA 2.0 procurement gate for new national-security systems (Jan 1) · CMMC Phase 3 (Level 3, government-led).
~2028
CMMC Phase 4 — full rollout across applicable acquisitions.
2029
A Qtonic Quantum planning assumption — a planning marker, not a prediction and not a NIST date.
2030
CNSA 2.0 software- and firmware-signing moves to exclusive post-quantum use; NIST IR 8547 (initial public draft) describes deprecating quantum-vulnerable public-key cryptography after this point.
2033
CNSA 2.0 exclusive use across national-security systems.
2035
National-security-systems quantum-resistant target (NSM-10).
2 NIST IR 8547 is an initial public draft as of the document date; deprecation timing and scope are subject to change in final publication. Sources: CMMC final rules 32 CFR Part 170 and 48 CFR; DFARS 252.204-7021 and 7012; NSA CNSA 2.0; NIST SP 800-171; NIST IR 8547 initial public draft; EO 14144. CNSA 2.0 is mandatory for national security systems; applicability to a given contractor depends on its systems and contracts. The 2029 reference is a Qtonic Quantum planning assumption, not a prediction.
03 / Exposure
Where classical cryptography touches a supplier
Four cryptographic domains, every one running on classical RSA / ECC primitives today. A cryptographic bill of materials is the prerequisite for any defensible migration plan.
01CUI & Technical DataCUI repositories & enclaves · ITAR-controlled technical data · Engineering & design files · Long-life program data
Design files describe platforms with service lives measured in decades, which makes harvest-now, decrypt-later the operative risk. The Conduent cyber event of January 2025 is a public example of scale: Conduent confirmed the incident in an SEC filing and booked $25M in direct response costs.
Public sources — SEC filing, public reporting. Not a Qtonic Quantum client.
02Software & Firmware SigningCode-signing certificates & keys · Firmware signing for fielded systems · HSM-anchored signing roots · Build & release pipeline
CNSA 2.0 calls for software and firmware signing to move to the post-quantum suite well ahead of the broader deadline. The 2025 InterLock ransomware attack on National Defense Corporation showed the exposure; parent National Presto Industries disclosed it in an SEC filing, and the group claimed roughly 4.2 TB taken.
Public sources — SEC filing, threat-actor leak-site claim. Not a Qtonic Quantum client.
03Supply Chain & Remote AccessSub-tier supplier connections · Prime contractor data exchange · Vendor remote-access PKI
CMMC requirements flow down from primes to sub-tier suppliers, so one supplier's cryptographic weakness becomes a program-wide exposure. The Leidos incident, in which internal documents were taken through a third-party platform vulnerability, shows how a vendor link becomes the breach path.
Public sources — public reporting. Not a Qtonic Quantum client.
04Compliance SurfaceCMMC L1/L2/L3 assessment · DFARS 7012 / NIST 800-171 · CNSA 2.0 procurement gate
CMMC assessment, DFARS 252.204-7012, NIST SP 800-171, the CNSA 2.0 procurement gate, and ITAR / EAR export controls converge on one point: cryptographic primitives must be auditable, deprecation-aware, and forward-compatible. CNSA 2.0 names the exact post-quantum algorithms acquisitions will require.
04 / Counterparty
Why Qtonic Quantum
Qtonic Quantum Corp is a Florida profit corporation headquartered at 1000 Biscayne Blvd, Miami FL 33132, converted from Qryptonic LLC effective February 20, 2026. SAM.gov UEI FRYFAD3GW5W5. CAGE 14E99. A contracting officer can verify the counterparty in minutes. The company is vendor-neutral — no HSM, no PKI product, no TLS appliance for sale. Governance and defense adjacency are provided by the Defense Innovation Council, chaired by Lt. Gen. Mark E. Weatherington, USAF (Ret.), and the Allied Defense Council, founding-chaired by Lt. Gen. Roger L. Cloutier Jr., USA (Ret.).
“I spent my career in environments where encryption failure means mission failure. Qtonic Quantum applies that standard to enterprise systems.”
Four tools, one closed loop
QScout — Find
External-first cryptographic risk and vulnerability intelligence. CycloneDX 1.7 CBOM across 15 compliance frameworks. Tiers: QScout Free, Surface, Silver, Gold, Pulse. QScout is not a penetration test; paid tiers run under written authorization.
QStrike — Prove
Hardware-backed demonstration and resource-estimate validation against a bounded 2030–2031 quantum-equipped adversary model. It does not claim present-day RSA-2048 or ECC-256 break capability. $2M Challenge commercially underwritten.
QSolve — Fix
Five-phase migration roadmap (Inventory, Risk & Debt, Prioritization, Hybrid Deployment via X25519+ML-KEM-768, QStrike Validation). The hybrid primitive is already in production at Cloudflare, Google Chrome, and AWS KMS.
The QStrike quantum-cloud platform set
QStrike executes bounded validation workloads on commercial quantum hardware reached through the multi-vendor aggregator AWS Braket and direct provider clouds. The execution set is six platforms across four physical modalities — superconducting, trapped-ion, neutral-atom, and annealing.
| Platform | Modality | Access route | QStrike role |
|---|---|---|---|
| IBM Quantum | Superconducting | Direct (IBM Quantum Platform) | Gate-model adversary-circuit modeling on bounded instances; cross-vendor consistency |
| Rigetti | Superconducting | AWS Braket | Bounded gate-model workloads; superconducting cross-check |
| IonQ | Trapped-ion | AWS Braket; direct | High-fidelity bounded statistical validation and sampling verification |
| Quantinuum | Trapped-ion | Direct (Quantinuum Nexus) | High-fidelity bounded validation; trapped-ion cross-check |
| QuEra | Neutral-atom | AWS Braket | Analog Hamiltonian sampling for selected combinatorial attack-chain modeling |
| D-Wave | Annealing | D-Wave Leap (direct); AWS Marketplace | Combinatorial candidate prioritization and bounded search-space exploration |
Six platforms across four physical modalities, reflecting platforms commercially cloud-accessible as of June 2026, subject to provider access terms and engagement-specific availability. Google Quantum research team’s Willow and other non-commercial research processors are used only as published-benchmark calibration inputs to the adversary model; they are not part of the QStrike execution set, and QStrike does not run customer workloads on them.
Company-reported · not independently audited
05 / Engagement
Find → Prove → Fix → Credential
Each phase produces a discrete artifact the next phase consumes, usable as input for a CMMC assessor, a prime contractor’s flow-down review, a contracting officer, or a board. Continuous re-attestation feeds the cycle.
01 · Find — QScout
CycloneDX 1.7 CBOM · 15-framework compliance map · finding-level register.
02 · Prove — QStrike
Hardware-backed validation report against a bounded 2030–2031 adversary model; no present-day break claim.
03 · Fix — QSolve
Sequenced migration plan on hybrid X25519+ML-KEM-768, mapped to fiscal quarters.
04 · Credential — the Lab
Vendor-neutral score; ML-DSA-signed attestation; re-attestation cadence.
Mid-tier defense supplier scale; four phases over 12 to 18 months from a scoped proof-of-concept. Scope drivers: CUI system count, number of CMMC-scoped enclaves, signing-infrastructure complexity, and vendor cooperation. Commercial terms are provided under NDA at scoping. The Lab’s assessment spans 215 reference implementations (company-reported).
06 / Outcomes
Business outcomes
The engagement produces a cryptographic inventory, a validated migration plan, and a signed attestation that support CMMC assessment, prime flow-down review, the CNSA 2.0 procurement gate, and board risk reporting. These artifacts are technical inputs; they do not determine compliance or guarantee any assessment outcome. The business case is a comparison, not a promise.
Eligibility
The required CMMC level can determine award eligibility when it is in the solicitation.
4.2 TB
Claimed taken in the National Defense Corporation 2025 breach. Public sources — SEC filing, threat-actor leak-site claim; not a Qtonic Quantum client.
Small
Fraction of the supplier base with a final CMMC Level 2 certification as of October 2025.
The full engagement is a fraction of one lost program. Exposure framing, not a savings guarantee.
07 / Honest Pushback
Devil’s advocate
The strongest version of QStrike is not that quantum computers can break production cryptography today. The defensible claim is narrower and more valuable: QStrike shows which current implementation defects, weak protocol choices, leakage patterns, and migration gaps are likely to matter first when quantum-capable adversaries arrive.
Vendor non-cooperation
Where a vendor cannot supply hybrid X25519+ML-KEM-768 in the window, QSolve sequences compensating controls and gives procurement the evidence to require a deprecation date in vendor contracts. The CBOM is the leverage instrument.
Scope creep across the enterprise
Legacy build systems, test benches, and facility systems can absorb budget if scope is unbounded. The engagement scopes CUI and signing systems explicitly at the Find phase, with QStrike validation focused where HNDL or signature-forgery risk is highest.
Signature size in constrained systems
PQC primitives are larger (per FIPS 204, an ML-DSA-65 signature is 3,309 bytes; CNSA 2.0 specifies the larger ML-DSA-87). Cloudflare's October 2025 report notes the deployed hybrid 'has already incurred a 4% slowdown in TLS handshake time.' This brief treats extrapolation to constrained defense hardware as an engineering risk model, not a settled result; migration stages high-volume endpoints first.
Four questions to ask any post-quantum vendor
| Question | Qtonic Quantum answer |
|---|---|
| Do you sell the cryptography you assess? | No. The Lab scores what is on the market, not Qtonic Quantum products. |
| How does QStrike evidence the threat work? | QStrike uses controlled demonstrations and resource modeling. It does not claim present-day RSA-2048 or ECC-256 break capability. |
| Will I receive a signed, third-party-readable attestation? | The Lab issues attestations digitally signed using ML-DSA (NIST FIPS 204). |
| What is your scanner output format? | QScout produces CycloneDX 1.7 cryptographic bills of materials that ingest into existing SBOM tooling. |
08 / Next Step
Start with a scoped proof-of-concept
Scoped to a representative slice of corporate IT plus one CUI enclave or signing pipeline. Commercial terms are provided under NDA at scoping. 30-day kickoff from countersignature.
Week 1 — Scoping & access
Scoping calls, NDA execution, dataroom access.
Weeks 2 & 3 — QScout deployment
NIST-aligned scan across agreed scope. CBOM generation.
Week 4 — Findings review
CycloneDX CBOM delivered. Decision point on the Find engagement.
Post-Quantum Ready. Continuously.™
Notices
Notices & disclaimers
Forward-looking statements. Future events, timelines, and capabilities are forward-looking and may differ materially. The 2029 reference is a Qtonic Quantum planning assumption, not a prediction. Cited resource estimates are resource estimates, not demonstrations against production systems.
Company-reported metrics.“100,000+ findings,” “99% HNDL exposure signal,” “PQC readiness average 18/100,” “no OpenSSL-verified false positives observed,” and “215 implementations evaluated” are company-reported, not independently audited. Request methodology before relying on them.
QStrike capability scope. QStrike provides hardware-backed demonstrations and resource-estimate validation against deployed primitives. It does not claim, and should not be interpreted as claiming, present-day capability to break, decrypt, or forge signatures against production RSA, ECDSA, ECDH, or related classical primitives at full parameter sizes.
Standards.NIST IR 8547 is an initial public draft. FIPS 203 (ML-KEM) and FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) are published standards. Use of ML-DSA for Lab attestations does not by itself imply FIPS 140-3 module validation. CNSA 2.0 applicability depends on the contractor’s systems and contracts.
Composite illustration; industry incidents. “Calibre Defense Systems” is a composite, illustrative supplier — not real, not based on any single operator, not a Qtonic Quantum client. National Defense Corporation, Leidos, and Conduent incidents are described solely from public sources (SEC filings, state breach notifications, court records, and reputable trade media).
No public commercial terms; no binding offer. This page does not contain public commercial terms. Commercial terms are provided under NDA at scoping. No part constitutes a binding offer.
No warranty; no guarantee of compliance outcomes. Deliverables are advisory. They do not guarantee any CMMC certification, assessment result, contract award, CNSA 2.0 or DFARS determination, cyber-insurance outcome, or breach prevention.
Third-party trademarks & sources. All third-party marks are the property of their owners; reference is descriptive, not endorsement. Market statistics are attributable to their publishers, not to Qtonic Quantum.
Export control. Products and services may be subject to the EAR and possibly ITAR depending on configuration; classifications are confirmed at scoping.
Governing law.Florida law; disputes per the executed engagement letter. © 2026 Qtonic Quantum Corp.