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End-to-end post-quantum to your origin: ML-DSA certificates come to AOP and COTS

Cloudflare Changelog ★★★ View Markdown
#cloudflare#security

Hey everyone, it's me, Shii-chan! Today's news nudges us one more step toward being ready for quantum computers. It's a quiet one, but it matters.

Cloudflare Changelog developers.cloudflare.com

What was announced?

This one comes from Cloudflare's Changelog. Cloudflare now accepts ML-DSA (FIPS 204) post-quantum certificates on the connection between its edge and your origin server.

The story so far

Cloudflare has already been using X25519MLKEM768, a post-quantum hybrid scheme, for the key agreement part of the handshake.

But the authentication part, the certificate signatures that prove who you're talking to, was still using classic algorithms. Leaving that piece non-post-quantum only got you halfway.

What changes

With ML-DSA certificate support, both the key agreement and the authentication can now be post-quantum, giving you end-to-end post-quantum protection from Cloudflare to your origin. That helps you get ahead of "harvest now, decrypt later" style attacks.

Dive Deep

Two origin-facing features get support:

For certificate generation and setup, check the Post-quantum signatures guide. To see the current rollout status across products, see PQC in Cloudflare products.

Wrap-up

  • Cloudflare accepts ML-DSA (FIPS 204) post-quantum certificates between edge and origin
  • AOP uses an ML-DSA client certificate; COTS uses an ML-DSA CA you upload
  • Combined with X25519MLKEM768, both key agreement and authentication become post-quantum end-to-end
  • COTS applies when validating origin certificates under Full (strict) mode

This is a great update for the security and infrastructure folks who want to lock down their setup ahead of the quantum era!

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