NIST’s PQC Standards: FIPS 203-205 and the Migration Clock
On August 13, 2024, NIST published the final versions of FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA), and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA) — the first formal post-quantum cryptography standards, capping an eight-year open competition and starting the migration clock for RSA and elliptic-curve infrastructure. With harvest-now-decrypt-later collection already threatening long-lived secrets and federal migration timelines targeting the 2030s, enterprises face a decade-scale cryptographic inventory and replacement program. This guide walks the standards, the threat math, and the migration playbook from inventory to hybrid deployment.