Cloudflare makes Post-Quantum Cryptography accessible and free for all users

Cloudflare, Inc., the security, performance, and reliability company helping to build a better Internet, announced it will provide post-quantum cryptography for free by default to all customers to help secure their websites, APIs, cloud tools and remote employees against future threats. Now, all Cloudflare customers will be able to seamlessly migrate to the next era of cybersecurity standards–instantly and for free.

To promote a more responsive and resilient Internet, Cloudflare is making this promise at the 2023 Summit for Democracy. In addition, the company will release vendor-neutral roadmaps based on NIST standards to assist businesses in securing any connections that are not covered by Cloudflare.

In the near future, quantum computers are projected to have the ability to decipher a significant portion of the encrypted information on the internet due to their ability to perform intricate computations exponentially faster than current machines. As a result, the Biden Administration has mandated that government agencies prepare for the possibility of quantum computers breaking encryption in the future, and has urged the private sector to do the same. Present-day CISOs and CIOs recognize the need to take steps now to switch to post-quantum cryptography before any potential security breaches occur. Unfortunately, some emerging vendors are using this situation to their advantage by charging excessively high fees, which is impeding access to and affordability of post-quantum cryptography for businesses, non-profit organizations, and civil society groups.

Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare said “There are companies out there that want to charge CISOs exorbitant amounts to prepare for future attacks from quantum computers. At Cloudflare, we believe that privacy should be a human right and that post-quantum security should be the new baseline for the Internet–not an exploitative expense for businesses.

That’s why we are promising today to help equip businesses as well as non-profits and users with the most advanced cryptography available and to never charge for it.”

Since 2018, Cloudflare has participated in the standardization of post-quantum cryptography, and in 2022 it made post-quantum cryptography a beta service accessible to interested customers. Since 2019, Cloudflare has protected over 1 billion HTTP requests with post-quantum encryption. According to Cloudflare, more than 99% of websites on the Internet that support NIST-approved post-quantum cryptography for their connections are powered by Cloudflare.