QStrike methodology
Forward-threat validation against a bounded 2030 to 2031 quantum-equipped adversary model. Every event signed. Methodology published.
Category boundary
BAS tools test detection coverage with synthetic adversary patterns at the network and endpoint layer. Red teams exercise adversary playbooks against detection coverage. Both validate post-compromise behavior — what an attacker does after they are already inside.
QStrike validates which captured cryptographic exposures become tractable attack paths under a bounded 2030 to 2031 quantum-equipped adversary model. Different layer of the kill chain — pre-key-compromise, not post-compromise lateral movement.
That distinction is load-bearing. A BAS finding tells you the lateral-movement detection rule fires. A QStrike finding tells you the cryptographic primitive guarding the boundary will not survive a near-future adversary that already has the capture, and ranks the remediation order so the highest-leverage migration ships first.
Indirect-brute-force methodology
The primary cryptanalytic path is hidden-number-problem analysis, lattice reduction, and nonce-leakage analysis on captured cryptographic material — not direct quantum break of RSA-2048, which today’s hardware cannot do.
QStrike’s methodology is honest about what bounded-N quantum hardware can prove and what classical analysis on captured material proves. The published indirect-brute-force playbook covers:
Every primitive on the list is published in the open cryptanalytic literature. QStrike’s contribution is the validation harness, the cross-vendor consistency framework, and the signed evidence trail — not novel cryptanalysis.
Algorithm catalog
Quantum-cloud workloads validate algorithm correctness on calibrated provider profiles. They do not break production-strength keys.
N=15, N=21, N=143 (25-qubit implementation) — algorithm-correctness validation on calibrated provider profiles. Larger N requires hardware QStrike does not yet have access to.
Quadratic speedup demonstration over classical brute-force, applied to bounded keyspaces for correctness validation.
Single-query oracle solver used as a circuit-correctness validator across vendors and modalities.
Quantum-channel demonstration; informs side-channel modeling for classical key-establishment surfaces.
These prove algorithm correctness on calibrated provider profiles; they do not break production-strength keys. Larger Shor-N requires hardware QStrike does not yet have access to.
Provider reference set
superconducting
Calibrated profile · credentialed access path
status: active
trapped-ion
Calibrated profile · multi-cloud reachability
status: active
trapped-ion
Calibrated profile · highest published two-qubit fidelity
status: active
superconducting
Calibrated profile · independent error profile from IBM
status: active
annealing
Calibrated profile · classical-fallback for portions
status: active
superconducting
Reference baseline · cross-modality calibration anchor
status: active
neutral-atom
Calibrated profile · neutral-atom architecture diversity
status: active
photonic
Photonic modality · currently inactive
status: inactive
Workload mix today is approximately 92 percent Intelligence Model reasoning plus 8 percent quantum-cloud-executed cryptanalytic probing. Real-hardware execution scales with engagement scope.
Evidence standard
The conventional pre-quantum risk score for the affected primitive. Buyers see exactly what changes when the bounded-future adversary model is overlaid on existing risk.
The exact procedure that would disprove the finding. Evidence that cannot in principle be falsified is not evidence; we publish the disproof path on every claim.
Named reviewer chain. Every finding ships with the human chain-of-review that approved it for delivery, including dissent if dissent occurred.
Ordered remediation tasks with owners and ETAs that feed the QSolve roadmap. Findings without remediation paths do not ship.
Workflow
NDA, Engagement-Specific Access Schedule, cryptographic-surface inventory ingest, threat-model anchoring against a bounded 2030 to 2031 quantum-equipped adversary.
Passive cryptographic capture across the in-scope surface. No packet injection, no credential replay, no live-system key extraction. Capture artifacts hashed and signed on ingest.
Indirect-brute-force probing on captured material — HNP, lattice reduction, nonce-leakage analysis, side-channel chain modeling. Bounded quantum-cloud probing for algorithm-correctness validation. Cross-vendor consistency at Bonferroni-corrected alpha = 0.001.
CBOM, finding-by-finding evidence report, sequenced QSolve remediation roadmap, compliance mapping, hostile-review evidence package. Per-finding signed proof available within minutes of validation completion.
End-to-end engagement timeline: 30 to 120 days depending on scope. Per-finding signed proof is available within minutes of validation completion.
Fictional-illustrative engagement. Not an actual customer.
Worked example (synthetic)
Acme Bank engages QStrike to validate the cryptographic surface of its public-facing customer-authentication boundary. Capture phase ingests TLS handshake metadata, signature corpora from the credential-issuance service, and code-signing manifests from three deployment channels.
Validation phase identifies a long-lived TLS session-ticket key on the load-balancer fleet. The captured ticket lifetime exceeds the bounded-future adversary’s key-recovery horizon under the indirect-brute-force playbook. The finding is admitted to the deliverable evidence package after cross-vendor consistency check passes at alpha = 0.001 (Bonferroni-corrected).
Conventional pre-quantum risk: medium. Long-lived session-ticket key is a known anti-pattern in the OWASP TLS guidance set and is rated medium because classical recovery is computationally infeasible at current levels.
Forward-threat overlay (2030 to 2031 bounded-N adversary): high. The same primitive becomes tractable under captured-material analysis with bounded-N quantum assistance for partial-information lattice problems.
Rotate long-lived TLS session-ticket key on the public-facing load balancer fleet
Owner: Platform SRE · ETA: 7 days
Replace legacy ECDSA signing path with deterministic-nonce variant (RFC 6979) on the credential-issuance service
Owner: Identity engineering · ETA: 21 days
Migrate code-signing root from RSA-2048 to ML-DSA hybrid using the pre-validated CNSA 2.0 sequence
Owner: Crypto governance · ETA: 60 days
Establish quarterly cryptographic-surface re-scan via QScout with QStrike validation gate on tier-1 systems
Owner: CISO office · ETA: 90 days
Cryptographic proof
Buyers verify any signed event without QStrike’s involvement. Walk-through and copyable commands at /qstrike/verify.
Honest gaps
KNOWN_GAPS.md is the canonical disclosure surface. Selected entries:
QStrike is in pre-design-partner posture. Public claims describe the methodology and the platform; we do not claim deployed customer outcomes that have not occurred.
Production-strength Shor (RSA-2048, ECC-256) requires hardware that does not exist commercially as of May 2026. We disclose what bounded-N hardware proves and what it does not.
Today’s verification is per-event-envelope only. Bundle-level attestation (engine code hash + per-provider job IDs + calibration snapshots) is in active development on Lane-V and is not shipped.
Reference Python verifier (verify_gates.py) is available on request. The published @qtonicquantum/qstrike-verify CLI is not yet on npm.
Read the full public disclosure at /qstrike/known-gaps — including bounded Shor's, in-flight per-bundle attestation chain, fictional-illustrative engagement bundles, and what we explicitly don't publish.
If you would like the per-finding evidence schema, the cross-vendor consistency overlay, or the engagement-specific access schedule template, leave an address below. We will reply with a scoping conversation, not a sales sequence.
Forward-threat validation with provider-aligned platform profiles and engagement-tied performance commitments documented in SOW.
ExploreVerified executive snapshot and primary entry point for cryptographic risk assessment.
ExplorePQC migration planning with CISO-led engagements.
ExploreShared intelligence model, delivery rigor, and suite architecture across Qtonic Quantum products.
Explore