The cryptography behind the vault.
Entropa is built post-quantum from byte one. Every signature, key exchange, and seal uses NIST post-quantum cryptography, so your records stay confidential and provable for the decades regulators require — even against a quantum computer. We compose the strongest standardized primitives; we do not invent our own cryptography. The algorithms are open NIST standards anyone can audit — our specific protocol and implementation stay private.
"Harvest now, decrypt later" is already happening.
A quantum computer will break the classical cryptography (RSA, elliptic-curve) that protects most data today. Adversaries know this — so they harvest encrypted data now to decrypt it later, once quantum arrives. Medical, legal, and financial records must stay confidential for decades, long past that horizon. Encrypting them with classical crypto today is a slow-motion breach. Entropa closes that door now.
Our post-quantum stack
Every layer is a NIST-standardized post-quantum primitive. No classical asymmetric cryptography — no RSA, no ECDSA, no ECDH — exists anywhere in the stack.
Digital signatures — ML-DSA
FIPS 204. Every record and every checkpoint is signed with the NIST post-quantum signature standard, so authenticity and integrity survive the quantum era.
Key encapsulation — ML-KEM
FIPS 203. Keys are protected with ML-KEM — and at rest with ML-KEM-1024 (NIST Level 5), the highest security tier, because at-rest data lives the longest.
Hash-based signatures — SLH-DSA
FIPS 205. Our roots use SLH-DSA in a pure-Rust implementation validated byte-for-byte against the NIST test vectors — no C, no external dependency, conservative security from a different mathematical family.
At-rest encryption — AES-256-GCM
The quantum-safe symmetric cipher that seals your data (a quantum computer only halves 256-bit to a still-unbreakable 128). Its key is always ML-KEM-wrapped — so the protection is post-quantum, end to end.
Integrity — SHA3-256
Records are hash-linked with SHA3-256. Any change to any record — an edit, a reorder, a deletion — breaks the chain and is instantly detectable.
Key recovery — Shamir threshold
A lost key is recoverable by a quorum of your own custodians (any k of n shares) — and by no single party, including us. Below the threshold, nothing is revealed.
Memory safety — Rust
The entire cryptographic core is built in Rust, eliminating the memory-corruption vulnerabilities that have compromised C-based crypto stacks for decades.
Transport — post-quantum tunnel
Records travel over an ML-KEM key exchange under authenticated encryption — the wire itself is post-quantum, so data is protected in transit and at rest alike.
Why this is ahead of the field
Post-quantum now, not someday
NIST finalized the post-quantum standards in 2024; most of the industry hasn't begun migrating. Entropa is post-quantum from the first byte — including the hardest part, post-quantum at rest, which almost no records or compliance platform does today.
The whole system, composed
Post-quantum plus immutable, independently attested, externally anchored, and threshold-recoverable — in one system. Each piece is a proven standard; assembling them correctly is the craft.
Standardized, not homegrown
Trustworthy cryptography is open, standardized cryptography — not secret in-house algorithms. Ours are the public NIST standards anyone can scrutinize. What stays private is how we compose and deploy them.
No passwords. Ever.
A password is a shared secret — phishable, breachable, and a liability to store. Entropa has none. Every actor — a person, a connector, or a service — is a post-quantum key. You authenticate by proving you hold your private key, not by revealing a secret: the system issues a fresh, single-use challenge, you sign it, and it verifies against your registered key. Nothing secret is ever transmitted or stored — phishing-resistant by construction.
Passwordless
Your identity is a post-quantum keypair held on your device or in a hardware token — never a password in a database to steal, phish, or reuse.
Zero-trust
The network is never trusted. Every request is authenticated and authorized over a post-quantum channel, least-privilege, every time.
Headless
No login pages. People, connectors, and services authenticate programmatically with signed requests — built for automation and integration.
What we won't do
- We don't invent our own cryptography — that's a red flag, not a feature.
- We never hold your plaintext or your keys — we store only ciphertext and hashes (zero-knowledge).
- We don't claim certifications we don't have. Entropa is built to the SOC 2 / HITRUST / PCI-DSS / 21 CFR Part 11 controls and pursuing certification; the cryptographic core is built in Rust and verified by an invariant test suite.