From RSA‑896 Breach to Quantum‑Ready Security: A Practical Migration Guide

Introduction

The shock‑wave from the RSA‑896 compromise has turned “post‑quantum crypto” from a niche research topic into an urgent business priority. Within hours the attack was trending worldwide, and security teams are scrambling to replace vulnerable keys before regulators start asking questions.

If your organization runs TLS, VPN, code‑signing, or JWT services, you need a clear, hands‑on plan to move from legacy RSA/ECC to NIST‑approved post‑quantum algorithms today—not in 2025. This guide gives you exactly that: a concise threat overview, performance snapshots, ready‑to‑run code, and a step‑by‑step migration roadmap that satisfies NIST SP 800‑208, GDPR, and industry best practices.

1️⃣ What Happened? The RSA‑896 Attack in Plain English

Bottom line: Any service still using RSA‑896 (or smaller) is exposed. Replace those keys immediately and start planning a broader migration to quantum‑resistant primitives.

2️⃣ NIST Post‑Quantum Cryptography Landscape (What’s Ready Now)

*Sizes are larger than RSA/ECC but still practical for TLS 1.3, VPN, and JWT payloads.

3️⃣ Real‑World Performance (Benchmarks on a 2023‑class Server)

The numbers show a modest CPU cost and a manageable increase in bandwidth—acceptable for most modern networks, especially when you consider the security upside.

4️⃣ Migration Roadmap (What to Do, When)

Phase 0 – Inventory & Risk Assessment

1. Scan all services for RSA keys ≤ 1024 bits (use ssh-keygen -lf, openssl rsa -text).
2. Tag assets: Critical (public‑facing TLS, code‑signing), Important (internal VPN), Low (dev‑only).

Phase 1 – Immediate Remediation (Days 1‑7)

Replace every RSA‑896 key.

# Generate a 4096‑bit RSA key (temporary stop‑gap)
openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:4096 -out rsa4096.pem

# Generate a Kyber‑768 key‑pair (OpenSSL 3.2+)
openssl genpkey -algorithm kyber -pkeyopt kem:kyber768 -out kyber_private.pem
openssl pkey -in kyber_private.pem -pubout -out kyber_public.pem

Update server configs (nginx, Apache, OpenVPN, etc.) to point to the new key files and restart the service.

Phase 2 – Dual‑Stack Enablement (Weeks 2‑4)

Deploy algorithm agility: support both RSA/ECC and PQC during a transition period.

# Example: Nginx TLS config enabling both RSA and Kyber
ssl_certificate      /etc/ssl/certs/kyber_cert.pem;
ssl_certificate_key  /etc/ssl/private/kyber_private.pem;
ssl_conf_command     "KexAlgorithms +Kyber768"

Clients that do not understand Kyber will fall back to RSA/ECC automatically.

Phase 3 – Full PQC Cut‑Over (Months 2‑6)

1. Retire RSA/ECC keys from critical services.
2. Switch code‑signing pipelines to Dilithium signatures.

# Sign a binary with Dilithium‑3 (using pqcrypto library)
python3 - <<'PY'
from pqcrypto.sign import dilithium3
msg = b'my‑binary‑payload'
sk, pk = dilithium3.generate_keypair()
sig = dilithium3.sign(msg, sk)
open('binary.sig','wb').write(sig)
PY

1. Update CI/CD to verify Dilithium signatures before deployment.

Phase 4 – Audit & Compliance (Month 6+)

Run the Compliance Checklist (see Section 6) and generate evidence for auditors.

5️⃣ Hands‑On Code & OpenSSL Commands

5.1 Key Generation

# RSA‑4096 (fallback)
openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:4096 -out rsa4096.pem

# Kyber‑768 KEM (OpenSSL 3.2+)
openssl genpkey -algorithm kyber -pkeyopt kem:kyber768 -out kyber_private.pem
openssl pkey -in kyber_private.pem -pubout -out kyber_public.pem

# Dilithium‑3 signature key pair (pqcrypto)
python3 -c "
from pqcrypto.sign import dilithium3
sk, pk = dilithium3.generate_keypair()
open('dilithium3_sk.pem','wb').write(sk)
open('dilithium3_pk.pem','wb').write(pk)
"

5.2 TLS Handshake Test

# Start a temporary OpenSSL server with Kyber
openssl s_server -quiet -cert kyber_cert.pem -key kyber_private.pem -tls1_3 -port 8443

# Test from a client
openssl s_client -connect localhost:8443 -tls1_3 -servername test.example.com

5.3 JWT with Dilithium Signature

import json, base64
from pqcrypto.sign import dilithium3

# Load keys
sk = open('dilithium3_sk.pem','rb').read()
pk = open('dilithium3_pk.pem','rb').read()

header = {"alg":"Dilithium3","typ":"JWT"}
payload = {"sub":"1234567890","name":"Alice","iat":1727200000}
def b64url(data): return base64.urlsafe_b64encode(data).rstrip(b'=')

msg = b'.'.join([b64url(json.dumps(header).encode()),
                 b64url(json.dumps(payload).encode())])
sig = dilithium3.sign(msg, sk)
jwt = b'.'.join([msg, b64url(sig)])
print(jwt.decode())

6️⃣ Compliance Checklist (NIST SP 800‑208, GDPR, Best Practices)

Herramienta mencionada: GitHub Copilot