Head of Cloud Security Policy, Government Affairs and Public Policy, Google Cloud The latest on security from Google Cloud's Office of the CISO, twice a month. Welcome to the first Cloud CISO Perspectives for October 2026. Today, Stephanie Kiel explains the latest on our approach to post-quantum cryptography, and shares a new tool to help CISOs and executives prepare their organizations for PQC. Our curated insights hub for boards of directors highlights resources on cybersecurity, risk governance, and security transformation, including the latest blogs and research from Google Cloud.
By Stephanie Kiel, Head of Cloud Security Policy, Government Affairs and Public Policy, Google Cloud Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is one of the most urgent security shifts of the decade — and one of the easiest to tune out. For security leaders and policymakers, the research is dense, scattered across papers and engineering blogs, and can be challenging to turn into action. To help, we're launching Prepare for Post-Quantum Cryptography , a public Gemini Notebook that brings Google's PQC research, engineering blogs, and migration guidance together in one place.
Ask it questions, listen to an audio overview, or test yourself with flashcards, and quickly get up to speed on the quantum threat. Quantum computing is rapidly moving from theory to reality. Our Willow chip and Quantum Echoes algorithm mark substantial progress, and Google research estimates that breaking ECDLP-256 and RSA-2048 encryption — the public-key cryptography schemes protecting much of our online data — would require around 500,000 and 1 million imperfect quantum computer components (noisy qubits), respectively. This research has consequences now.
It indicates that today’s online security is more vulnerable to future quantum computers than previously thought. In Store Now, Decrypt Later attacks, adversaries may steal encrypted data now and wait to decrypt it once a sufficiently powerful quantum computer exists. Data that we’ve long considered sensitive — health records, financial data, intellectual property, and government secrets — is already at risk . With continued advances in architecture, quantum algorithms, and quantum error correction shrinking future quantum hardware requirements, waiting to upgrade our digital locks is not a viable option.