Dell is urging organizations to shift from annual to continuous penetration testing, mirroring real-world “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” (HNDL) campaigns to proactively expose vulnerabilities. While many focus on migrating to post-quantum cryptography, the company highlights a critical blind spot: the immediate risk of data harvesting for future decryption. “Every unprotected data flow is a future breach waiting to happen,” warns Ash Lakshmanan. Aggressive patch schedules tied to both exploitability and data sensitivity are now essential to shrink the attack surface and protect against this evolving threat.
Proactive Security Minimizes Future “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” Risk
Aggressive vulnerability management is now essential, driven by the emergence of cybersecurity-focused large language models that have dramatically reduced the time between identifying and exploiting weaknesses. This shift compels organizations to move beyond traditional annual penetration testing schedules, instead adopting a “continuous” approach to pressure-test detection and response systems, exposing blind spots adversaries would exploit. Dell Technologies emphasizes that this proactive stance is critical for minimizing exposure to “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” campaigns, where attackers collect encrypted data for future decryption.
Organizations are currently prioritizing cryptographic migration to post-quantum cryptography, but this focus creates a significant oversight. Adversaries are actively attempting to harvest data now, anticipating future decryption capabilities. This disconnect represents a critical blind spot in many security strategies, as securing data directly limits the volume of information available for potential decryption in the future.
According to Dell, the most effective way to reduce exposure to these campaigns is to prevent data harvesting in the first place, locking down environments across all layers. This proactive approach complements, rather than replaces, the necessary transition to post-quantum cryptography. Shrinking the attack surface requires aggressive service level agreements (SLAs) for patching vulnerabilities, tied to both the exploitability of those weaknesses and the sensitivity of the data they could expose.
The company advocates for a layered defense, combining proactive security with continuous monitoring and isolated backups to create a robust shield against data exfiltration. Data exfiltration attacks are often engineered to be slow and stealthy, specifically designed to evade traditional monitoring systems; therefore, hardware-level observability is important for detecting and disrupting these harvesting operations.
The combination of these pillars, proactive security, continuous monitoring and cyber vaults, dramatically reduces exposure to “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” threats, providing organizations with the time needed to methodically execute their post-quantum cryptography migration. Dell Technologies suggests that adversaries are already playing a long game, and organizations must adopt a similar strategy by simultaneously addressing immediate threats and preparing for the future cryptographic landscape. This requires a methodical approach to inventorying, planning, piloting and migrating to quantum-resistant cryptography, ensuring readiness ahead of any mandated deadlines.
Continuous Hardware Observability Detects Stealthy Data Exfiltration
Continuous penetration testing, exceeding annual assessments, is now essential to realistically simulate Harvest Now, Decrypt Later (HNDL) exfiltration campaigns and reveal vulnerabilities. Dell Technologies advocates for persistent, scenario-driven tests across infrastructure, applications and cloud environments, exposing blind spots that a determined adversary would exploit, the company says. This approach moves beyond simply identifying weaknesses to actively pressure-testing detection and response systems, a shift in frequency critical for modern threat landscapes.
The shrinking timelines for vulnerability identification and exploitation, accelerated by cybersecurity-focused large language models, emphasise the urgency of proactive security. Every vulnerability closed and every data exfiltration path eliminated diminishes the volume of encrypted data available for future decryption, even as organizations undertake lengthy post-quantum cryptography (PQC) migrations. This proactive stance acknowledges that data harvested now presents a permanent risk, regardless of eventual cryptographic defenses.
Dell emphasizes that closing these vulnerabilities is a fundamental necessity during the migration period. Telemetry originating from the silicon itself can detect firmware tampering, BIOS-level configuration changes and supply chain compromises that bypass operating system-level defenses. Full-stack correlation, fusing telemetry from hardware, firmware, operating systems, networks and applications, creates a comprehensive detection model, recognizing that adversaries operate across multiple layers.
Supplementing this with 24/7 expert-led threat hunting, focused on data staging, exfiltration patterns and anomalous encrypted traffic, can accelerate response times from hours to minutes, potentially preventing data loss. “If you can’t see it, you can’t stop it,” the company states, highlighting how hardware-level observability closes critical visibility gaps exploited by HNDL operators.
This hardware observability, when correlated across application, data and runtime layers within security operations tooling, provides a full-context approach and a clear incident response playbook for security operations centers, according to Dell. The strategic imperative, according to Dell, is that regardless of the precise timeline for quantum computing advancements, defending against current threats remains paramount.
Cyber Vaults Protect Key Management Artifacts & Backups
Establishing isolated environments represents an essential final step in a comprehensive data protection strategy, safeguarding key management artifacts, configurations, and dependencies necessary for incident recovery. Organizations are increasingly implementing on-premises vaults to house backups of these critical elements, separating them from primary systems with distinct administrative credentials and ensuring immutability. This approach provides a secure, trusted “off-site” copy, essential for rebuilding systems following a successful attack.
The effectiveness of these cyber vaults is maximized when integrated with broader security initiatives, as no single solution provides complete protection. Dell emphasizes that proactive security measures, designed to minimize potential entry points for adversaries, must be combined with continuous monitoring using hardware-level observability to detect and disrupt data harvesting attempts. Prioritization of data for vaulting should not be based on system age, but rather on the duration of its confidentiality requirement.
Data with long-term secrecy needs, regulated information, intellectual property, trade secrets, extended financial and health records, source code, and signing keys, should be at the top of the list, alongside long-retention backups and archives where such data accumulates. Dell’s 2026 commercial PCs already include quantum-resistant upgrades protecting the PC boot chain. PQC firmware authentication is being deployed on PowerEdge platforms, with select storage products slated to adopt the technology in 2027.
The company advocates for a phased delivery approach, allowing hybrid cryptographic modes where classical and post-quantum algorithms coexist, and prioritizing cryptographic agility by design. Continuous penetration testing, exceeding the scope of annual assessments, is also recommended, simulating real-world exfiltration attempts to expose vulnerabilities in detection and response systems. These persistent tests pressure-test defenses, revealing blind spots that a determined attacker would exploit. This complete strategy buys organizations time to execute their cryptographic transitions methodically, rather than reactively under the pressure of compliance deadlines, and ensures the resilience of their data against evolving threats.
NIST PQC Standards Drive Cryptographic Migration Planning
NIST’s finalized post-quantum cryptography standards are now influencing enterprise security strategies beyond simply adopting new algorithms; organizations must evaluate vendor claims of “quantum readiness” by assessing the entire dependency chain, not individual products. Dell emphasizes that a comprehensive approach to cryptographic agility is important, allowing for algorithm swaps as standards evolve without requiring complete system redesigns, and improving overall security regardless of the quantum threat timeline.
This focus on adaptability acknowledges that PQC implementation is an ongoing process of refinement and adjustment, not a one-time fix. The standards, specifically FIPS 203, 204, and 205, are driving timelines for both public and private sector organizations, with US federal agencies facing procurement requirements for National Security Systems acquisitions beginning January 1, 2027.
While government entities are leading the charge due to existing policy frameworks, financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, and critical infrastructure organizations are already facing demands to demonstrate a PQC migration strategy as a condition of doing business. This external pressure is accelerating the need for comprehensive planning and implementation, extending beyond mere compliance to proactive risk mitigation. This strategy enables the adoption of PQC within existing replication, backup, and clustering workflows without mandating immediate upgrades across all systems, and provides flexibility as standards mature.
Dell advises that true readiness depends on the entire system’s cryptographic dependency chain, not a single component. Prioritization of migration efforts should align with business criticality, data sensitivity and the required lifespan of confidentiality, creating a roadmap tied to existing refresh cycles. Organizations must therefore prioritize systems based on data sensitivity and confidentiality lifespan, not simply system age, to minimize exposure.
HNDL Threat Model Requires Defense-in-Depth Strategies
Hardware-level observability is now essential to counter emerging threats, extending security monitoring down to the silicon itself. Traditional endpoint detection and response systems struggle to identify firmware tampering or BIOS-level changes, leaving a critical gap for adversaries to exploit. Dell emphasizes that telemetry must originate from the silicon to provide complete visibility. The threat is not theoretical, data compromised remains exposed even as organizations undertake years-long cryptographic migrations.
Every closed vulnerability, eliminated exfiltration path, and isolated data copy reduces the volume of encrypted information available to adversaries, minimizing potential future losses. The U.S. CNSA 2.0 standard requires quantum-resistant algorithms for new National Security Systems acquisitions starting January 1, 2027, signaling a clear direction for procurement. Federal civilian migration targets aim for completion by 2030, with broader national and international guidance suggesting completion between 2031 and 2035.
However, the precise date of full migration is less important than the immediate steps taken to protect data, because HNDL losses are permanent. Digital signatures, which underpin firmware validation, secure boot, and software updates, are a key target; if forged, attackers can introduce malicious firmware that bypasses existing security measures, as the system would perceive no anomaly.
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