FIPS 203, 204 and 205
The three post-quantum standards NIST finalised in August 2024: FIPS 203 (ML-KEM) for key establishment, FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) for general-purpose signatures, and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA) for hash-based signatures.
Related terms
The NIST-standardised post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism, used to establish a shared secret over an untrusted network. It is the replacement for RSA key transport and elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman.
The NIST-standardised lattice-based digital signature algorithm, intended as the general-purpose post-quantum replacement for RSA-PSS and ECDSA. Signatures are larger than ECDSA but performance is practical for most uses.
A stateless hash-based post-quantum signature scheme whose security depends only on the strength of its underlying hash function. Signatures are large and slow, but the security assumptions are the most conservative of the NIST signature standards.
NIST's report on transitioning to post-quantum standards, which proposes deprecating RSA-2048 and ECDSA-P256 by 2030 and disallowing them by 2035. It is the clearest published deadline for retiring classical public-key cryptography.