Many Medical Devices Incapable of Supporting Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography

Posted By Steve Alder on Oct 7, 2026

An analysis of medical devices indicates that healthcare organizations face a significant risk of future quantum-enabled attacks, as only a small percentage are capable of supporting a transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). The analysis was conducted by cybersecurity firm Forescout on more than 2.5 million Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices used by more than 50 healthcare delivery organizations. The findings are published in its October 2026 PQC in Healthcare Report.

Quantum computers vastly surpass the computational ability of standard computers as they process information using quantum states. They are capable of tackling complex problems that even today’s supercomputers are unable to solve. A problem tackled by a quantum computer may take minutes or hours compared to millennia by today’s most powerful computers. One such application would be cracking today’s encryption models.

Quantum computers are still under development, but Google has predicted that advances currently being made could render current encryption methods obsolete in the next five years, potentially as early as 2029. While it may appear that there is no immediate risk, encrypted data could potentially be harvested now for decryption later when quantum computing has sufficiently advanced. Forescout warns that the risk is greater in healthcare due to the long-term value of healthcare data, compared to data such as account numbers and payment card information which can be easily changed.