Most production stacks are running RSA and ECC in a dozen places the developer didn't consciously choose — a cloud provider default, an npm package, a library that made the decision years ago. NIST finalized FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA), and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA) in August 2024. These are your drop-in replacements. Where to start-
Step 1: Find your RSA/ECC surface area
//Scan your codebase for explicit RSA/ECC references
grep -r "RSA|EC|elliptic|rsa|ecdsa|ecdh" ./src --include=".js" --include=".ts" --include="*.py"
// Check your package.json for crypto-heavy deps
cat package.json | grep -i "crypto|jose|jwt|tls|ssl"
Beyond your own code: check your JWT signing algorithm (RS256 = RSA, ES256 = ECC — both need migration eventually), your TLS certificate type (EC cert vs RSA cert), your cloud provider's key management service configuration, and your S3 or blob storage encryption settings.
Step 2: Check library support
OpenSSL 3.x supports hybrid PQC in experimental mode. BoringSSL (used by Chrome, Node.js) has ML-KEM support in active development. For Node.js specifically, the node:crypto module currently follows OpenSSL — watch the OpenSSL PQC roadmap for your version.
For AWS: KMS now supports ML-KEM key agreement in preview regions. GCP Cloud KMS has a PQC roadmap published. Check your region's support before planning migration.
Step 3: Hybrid mode first, not big-bang
NIST recommends running classical and post-quantum algorithms in parallel during the 2025–2027 migration window. For TLS, this means negotiating ML-KEM where both sides support it and falling back to X25519 where they don't. Most modern TLS implementations support hybrid key exchange via config flags — no code changes required for the negotiation layer.
Step 4: Prioritise by data lifespan
Health records, financial data, legal documents, anything with a 5-10 year sensitivity window — migrate these encryption paths first. Session tokens and short-lived auth data can wait. This is about making rational risk-based decisions, not panicking and rebuilding everything.
Full business-level context and the SMB checklist at Here
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