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F5 Labs 2026 report: 54% of top 1M sites support PQC key exchange, but only 22% without Cloudflare

1 fonte(s) · 1 atualização(ões) · publicado 22/09/2026 17:35 · coletado há 3 dias

The F5 Labs 2026 State of PQC on the Web report scanned the top 1 million domains with TLS 1.3 handshakes. It found that 54% support post-quantum (hybrid) key exchange, but the figure is driven mainly by CDNs, especially Cloudflare and Fastly, which enable PQC by default. Excluding Cloudflare-hosted domains, adoption falls to 22%. Sectors holding long-lived sensitive data lag behind: Government 35%, Oil & Gas 34% and Telecommunications 35%, even with CDN uplift. The report warns of exposure to "harvest now, decrypt later" (HNDL) collection and the longer-term "trust now, forge later" (TNFL) risk to digital signatures. It cites U.S. Executive Order 14412 and the EU NIS Cooperation Group roadmap as the binding deadlines (2030-2031 and 2030/2035).

Detalhes técnicos

  • Methodology: active TLS 1.3 scans of the top 1M domains, capturing cipher suites, KEMs and certificate chains. Results were cross-referenced with ASN data to isolate CDN influence and mapped to headquarters location and industry.
  • Adoption is roughly 54% across most rank bins, with a spike of about 80% in ranks 80k-220k, correlated with Cloudflare and NGINX hosting.
  • Technical debt: 19% of top sites use certificates valid for more than 90 days, and 10% lack TLS 1.3, which hinders crypto-agility ahead of the 47-day certificate lifetime trend.
  • PQC public keys and signatures are much larger than RSA/ECC, so certificate chains will bloat. The report expects TCP fragmentation, buffer exhaustion and timeouts in east-west traffic, Kubernetes mTLS, database replication links and constrained IoT/OT devices.
  • The hybrid model (classical plus PQC) is recommended. The report cites the 2022 break of SIKE as justification.
  • Threat model: HNDL is the immediate risk, mainly against high-value, long-lived secrets. TNFL could allow forged certificates, firmware or code-signing signatures once a CRQC derives a CA or root private key.

Remediação

  • Do not rely on CDN defaults. Migrate origin servers, internal application tiers and private APIs to hybrid PQC.
  • Automate certificate issuance and renewal (PKI automation) to prepare for 47-day lifetimes, and deprecate legacy protocols in favour of TLS 1.3.
  • Test the effect of larger PQC handshakes and certificate chains on internal high-throughput networks and OT/IoT devices.
  • Plan migration against EO 14412 (key establishment by 31 Dec 2030, signatures by 31 Dec 2031) and the EU roadmap (high-risk systems by 2030, all others by 2035).

Linha do tempo

  1. f5.com ↗ · pub. 22/09/2026 17:35 · coletado 19/10 18:02 primeiro registro

    F5 Labs 2026 report: 54% of top 1M sites support PQC key exchange, but only 22% without Cloudflare

    ler a análise desta fonte

    The F5 Labs 2026 State of PQC on the Web report scanned the top 1 million domains with TLS 1.3 handshakes. It found that 54% support post-quantum (hybrid) key exchange, but the figure is driven mainly by CDNs, especially Cloudflare and Fastly, which enable PQC by default. Excluding Cloudflare-hosted domains, adoption falls to 22%. Sectors holding long-lived sensitive data lag behind: Government 35%, Oil & Gas 34% and Telecommunications 35%, even with CDN uplift. The report warns of exposure to "harvest now, decrypt later" (HNDL) collection and the longer-term "trust now, forge later" (TNFL) risk to digital signatures. It cites U.S. Executive Order 14412 and the EU NIS Cooperation Group roadmap as the binding deadlines (2030-2031 and 2030/2035).

    Technical Details

    • Methodology: active TLS 1.3 scans of the top 1M domains, capturing cipher suites, KEMs and certificate chains. Results were cross-referenced with ASN data to isolate CDN influence and mapped to headquarters location and industry.
    • Adoption is roughly 54% across most rank bins, with a spike of about 80% in ranks 80k-220k, correlated with Cloudflare and NGINX hosting.
    • Technical debt: 19% of top sites use certificates valid for more than 90 days, and 10% lack TLS 1.3, which hinders crypto-agility ahead of the 47-day certificate lifetime trend.
    • PQC public keys and signatures are much larger than RSA/ECC, so certificate chains will bloat. The report expects TCP fragmentation, buffer exhaustion and timeouts in east-west traffic, Kubernetes mTLS, database replication links and constrained IoT/OT devices.
    • The hybrid model (classical plus PQC) is recommended. The report cites the 2022 break of SIKE as justification.
    • Threat model: HNDL is the immediate risk, mainly against high-value, long-lived secrets. TNFL could allow forged certificates, firmware or code-signing signatures once a CRQC derives a CA or root private key.

    Remediation

    • Do not rely on CDN defaults. Migrate origin servers, internal application tiers and private APIs to hybrid PQC.
    • Automate certificate issuance and renewal (PKI automation) to prepare for 47-day lifetimes, and deprecate legacy protocols in favour of TLS 1.3.
    • Test the effect of larger PQC handshakes and certificate chains on internal high-throughput networks and OT/IoT devices.
    • Plan migration against EO 14412 (key establishment by 31 Dec 2030, signatures by 31 Dec 2031) and the EU roadmap (high-risk systems by 2030, all others by 2035).