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arXiv · 2609.26225

Quantum-Ready Secure WAN: A Risk Assessment and Migration Framework

Saeed Alam
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Abstract

Enterprise wide-area networks (WANs) use quantum-vulnerable public-key cryptography to authenticate peers and establish keys for Internet Protocol Security (IPsec), Transport Layer Security (TLS), and software-defined WAN services. Harvest-now, decrypt-later collection already threatens data whose protection lifetime may exceed the time needed to migrate, while a future cryptographically relevant quantum computer would also endanger certificates and other authentication dependencies. Post-quantum standards and government directives now define algorithms and transition milestones, but they do not tell an enterprise which WAN services to migrate first or what evidence is sufficient for deployment. This paper proposes a vendor-neutral framework that separates exposure priority, migration readiness, and evidence confidence, and maps those outputs to staged security, operational, and governance gates. It also defines a complete evaluation design for classical and ML-KEM hybrid key establishment in TLS 1.3 and IKEv2/IPsec. The retained artifact is narrower: it contains author-reported aggregate TLS p50, p95, and p99 latencies at configured loss settings of 0%, 1%, 3%, and 5%, an arithmetic checker, and limited environment and MTU/MSS notes. At those settings, the TLS-H minus TLS-C p95 differences are 0.00, 0.16, 0.38, and 0.63 ms, corresponding to 0.00%, 1.32%, 3.07%, and 5.00% relative to TLS-C. These values are descriptive aggregate observations, not inferential results, because per-trial data, sample counts, original captures, and timestamped logs were not retained. Protocol-size and MTU/MSS calculations are reported separately from measured behavior, and unsupported IKE, resource, throughput, retransmission, and downgrade outcomes are excluded.

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Saeed Alam. 2026-08-11. Quantum-Ready Secure WAN: A Risk Assessment and Migration Framework. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26225

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