Thales - Experts & Thought Leaders

DigiCert, a pioneering provider of digital trust, announced the results of the annual DigiCert® Quantum Readiness Awards. Migros, one of Switzerland’s largest retailers, was named the winner, while NTT DATA, a global digital business and IT services pioneer, was recognised as a finalist.  The awards were presented as part of DigiCert’s World Quantum Readiness Day activities, a date dedicated to raising awareness of the cybersecurity threats quantum computing poses and the steps organisations need to take now to prepare. Migros's wide strategy for quantum future Migros earned the award for its disciplined, company-wide strategy to prepare for a quantum future, including: Establishing a centre of excellence and setting a clear goal of achieving quantum readiness by 2030. Adopting a risk-based strategy, securing new assets from the outset and prioritising existing ones by data sensitivity. Committing to hybrid cryptography and strong governance, ensuring continuity, resilience, and executive-level support for enterprise-wide adoption. Migros's commitment to protecting customer trust  "At Migros, we view quantum readiness as a natural extension of our commitment to protecting customer trust," said Lukas Ruf, Group Chief Security & Risk Officer at Migros, adding "By establishing a centre of excellence, adopting hybrid cryptography, and embedding detailed governance requirements, we are ensuring our systems evolve securely and sustainably." He continues, "This recognition underscores the proactive role of our leadership, security teams, and stakeholders in preparing not just for today’s threats, but for the quantum challenges of tomorrow." NTT DATA as insurance services platform NTT DATA was recognised as a finalist for embedding quantum readiness as an operating discipline across its insurance services platform, including: Comprehensive cryptographic visibility and risk mapping, using DigiCert Trust Lifecycle Manager to inventory certificates and prioritise long-lived and sensitive data flows at risk of Harvest-Now, Decrypt-Later attacks. Practising crypto-agility at scale, operationalising 47-day certificate lifecycles to rehearse rapid rotation, automation, and policy enforcement ahead of PQC adoption. Engineering for hybrid cryptography and cloud governance, designing systems that combine classical and PQC modes across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, while openly sharing best practices to raise ecosystem readiness. Hybrid cryptography across multi- and sovereign clouds "At NTT DATA, we recognised that quantum readiness could not be left to chance, it had to become an operating discipline," said KAMODA Hiroaki, Head of Security & Network Division at NTT DATA Japan. KAMODA Hiroaki adds, "From building full cryptographic visibility to rehearsing agility with short-lived certificates and designing hybrid cryptography across multi- and sovereign clouds, we are embedding quantum readiness into the core of our services. This award reflects the commitment of our teams and our ecosystem partners to ensuring our customers can move with confidence into a post-quantum future." Expert panel of judges This year's honourees were selected by an expert panel of judges, including: Blair Canavan, Director, Alliances – PQC Portfolio, Thales Tim Hollebeek, Vice President of Industry Standards, DigiCert Dr. Ali El Kaafarani, CEO, PQShield Bill Newhouse, Cybersecurity Engineer & Project Lead, National Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence, NIST Alan Shimel, CEO, TechStrong Group Hugh Thompson, Chairman, RSAC Migros’s governance-driven approach “Quantum computing represents both a significant advance in computational capability and a corresponding threat to the cryptographic assets that underpin digital security,” said Tim Hollebeek, Vice President of Industry Standards at DigiCert and Quantum Readiness Award judge.  He adds, “NTT DATA’s emphasis on operationalising agility and hybrid cryptography, and Migros’s governance-driven approach with strong executive alignment, illustrate two rigorous and practical models of preparation. Both organisations provide concrete examples of what effective quantum readiness looks like in practice and set a useful benchmark for the rest of the industry.” DigiCert Quantum Readiness Awards The DigiCert Quantum Readiness Awards honour organisations that demonstrate innovation, foresight, and action in preparing for the post-quantum era. With most enterprises still reporting they are unprepared, NTT DATA and Migros stand out for making quantum readiness a business and operational priority.

Pioneering cybersecurity firm, Trustonic, has announced the strategic appointment of international business development consultancy, Intralink, to increase its market share in Japan. Established in 2012, Trustonic delivers advanced technology systems to drive innovation, protect revenue, and enhance security for device manufacturers worldwide. Secure OS Platform Intralink is a true business growth consultancy specialising in driving growth in global markets Committed to helping companies secure customers, partners and investors in Asia Pacific and other regions of the world, Intralink is a dedicated business development consultancy specialising in driving growth in international markets.  Already protecting over 3 billion connected devices with its Secure OS Platform – Kinibi – Trustonic counts the world’s pioneering car manufacturers, financial institutions, and mobile operators as customers, as well as every tier-one Android handset manufacturer across the globe. Demand for digital transformation and technological advances Recognising the opportunity for growth in Japan and the wider APAC region through rising demand for digital transformation and technological advances in healthcare, automation and robotics, Trustonic is now working closely with the Intralink team to build a local presence on the ground in Japan. Trustonic is now working closely with the Intralink team to build a local presence on the ground in Japan Not only will this enable the advanced cybersecurity firm to react quickly to growing demand across critical sectors, but it will also support the development of new local relationships. This comes just four months after Trustonic announced the appointment of Claire Maslen as Senior Vice President of Commercial and Operations for Secure Platform, together with plans to advance its vision of being the premier embedded cybersecurity partner for device OEMs worldwide. Rising cyber risks across critical industry sectors Claire Maslen, Senior Vice President of Commercial and Operations for Secure Platform, confirmed: “Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific region presents a strong market opportunity for Trustonic due to continued advances in technology combined with rising cyber risks across critical industry sectors." "While we have already started to build a presence in Japan, we are excited to partner with Intralink to really accelerate this growth, build vital new relationships and cement our market share in APAC.” New commercial agreements and partners Renata Naurzalieva, Trustonic Project Director at Intralink, added: “Japan is a key market for UK technology innovators but it’s also a complex and challenging environment to navigate. Our team’s strong understanding of the business culture in Japan, combined with its extensive network of contacts, will support Trustonic in building a stronger presence in the country and in securing new commercial agreements and partners.” Headquartered in Cambridge, UK, Trustonic was initially created from a joint venture between ARM, Thales, and G&D. Headquartered in Oxfordshire, Intralink has a presence in 27 locations, including Shanghai, Beijing, New Delhi, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, Bangkok, London, Paris, Silicon Valley, Boston and Toronto.

DigiCert, a major provider of digital trust, announced the speaker lineup for its World Quantum Readiness Day event, set to take place virtually on September 10, 2025. The event will bring together top voices in quantum computing, cryptography, and cybersecurity to provide actionable guidance on preparing for the quantum era. “Quantum computing is reshaping the foundation of digital security, and it’s essential that organisations understand and prepare for this next chapter,” said Amit Sinha, CEO of DigiCert. “We are honoured to welcome such a distinguished group of experts to help advance industry understanding and readiness for a quantum future.” Quantum preparedness World Quantum Readiness Day was created to urge organisations to assess their quantum preparedness, accelerate PQC adoption, and equip themselves against future threats. This year’s event will give attendees the knowledge they need to build a roadmap to become quantum-ready.  Guest panelists for World Quantum Readiness Day 2025 include: Dr. Taher Elgamal, Cryptographer, Entrepreneur, and the “Father of SSL,” Partner at Evolution Equity Partners Dr. Lily Chen, Mathematician and NIST Fellow, NIST Panos Kampanakis, Principal Security Engineer, AWS Richard Kisley, Chief Engineer, IBM HSM Jeff Stapleton, PQC Researcher, Wells Fargo and X9F4 Cybersecurity & Cryptography Chair   William Whyte, Sr. Director, Technical Standards, Qualcomm Tom Patterson, Managing Director for Emerging Technology Security, Accenture Colin Soutar, Global Quantum Cyber Readiness Lead, Deloitte Martin Reilly, Digital Identity Offering Manager, DXC Technologies Dr. Jim Goodman, CTO and Co-founder, Crypto4A Konstantinos Karagiannis, Director of Quantum Computing Services, Protiviti; Host of The Post-Quantum World podcast Blair Canavan, Director, Alliances - PKI & PQC Portfolio, Thales  Luke Valenta, Research Engineer, Cloudflare The event will be hosted by John Furrier, Cofounder & CEO of SiliconANGLE, with DigiCert moderators and speakers including Dr. Amit Sinha, CEO; Lakshmi Hanspal, CTrO; Deepika Chauhan, CPO; Jeremy Rowley, SVP and Digital Trust Strategist; Tim Hollebeek, VP of Industry Standards; Kevin Hilscher, Sr. Director of Product Management; Corey Bonnell, Industry Development Strategist; and Shane Kelly, Principal Crypto Architect.  Post-quantum cryptography DigiCert again will be honoring the winner and finalists of the 2025 Quantum Readiness Awards, which recognise organisations that have taken bold steps to become quantum-ready. These pioneers exemplify excellence in planning, executing, and advocating for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) adoption. Winners will be announced on September 25, 2025. Deadline to submit nominations is 11:59 p.m. PT on August 29, 2025. 

The next step in the journey of digital transformation, the fifth generation of wireless communications technologies (5G) will have an enormous impact on mankind, and on every industry including security. In short, 5G will disrupt the way we live and work. To discuss the changes, we presented our questions to Benoît Jouffrey, VP 5G Expertise at Thales, which is at the forefront of the transformation with an emphasis on trust and security. Following are his responses. Q: In layman's terms, what is the difference between 4G and 5G ecosystems as they relate to opportunity, flexibility and choice in networking tools? Jouffrey: Compared with largely one-size-fits-all 4G services, the 5G ecosystem will provide organisations with much greater choice and flexibility in the way they communicate over mobile networks. The network slicing capabilities of 5G means that business can have their own independent networks, with each one customised to their unique requirements and backed up by service-level agreements (SLA). Another aspect of 5G will be the ability to drive latency between UE (User Equipment) and network down to below a few milliseconds, which will massively boost the performance and scalability of enterprise applications. Q: How can these capabilities drive a company's digital operations? 5G will allow enterprises to be connected more efficiently Jouffrey: 5G will allow enterprises to be connected more efficiently: they can rely on a higher density of connected devices exchanging more information in a better timeframe. Due to these slicing capabilities, 5G networks allow for much greater personalisation than 4G networks. This means that businesses could benefit from this personalised network, tailored to their portfolio of Internet of Things (IoT) use cases, and not be necessarily expected to rely on a one-size-fits-all network. By combining the unique capabilities of 5G with the insights derived from analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, enterprises will be in much better stead to run their operations efficiently and securely. Q: How might 5G impact the use of cloud systems? Jouffrey: 5G is the first communication environment that is cloud-native. As such, 5G networks will support cloud-based applications in a way that 4G, 3G and 2G can’t support. For instance, sensors (e.g. in a manufacturing plant) often have a small internal storage and rely on synced devices (e.g. gateways) to interact with the cloud. Soon, these sensors will be able to work more efficiently, interacting with the cloud via the ultra-low latency and the edge computing capabilities supported by 5G networks. Unlike current IoT services that make performance trade-offs to get the best from these existing wireless technologies, 5G networks will be designed to bring the high levels of performance needed for the increasing use of IoT. It will enable a perceived fully ubiquitous connected world, with the boosted capacity offered by 5G networks transferring exponentially more data at a much quicker rate. Q: How can one provide trustworthy 5G lifecycle management for IoT devices? Jouffrey: Trustworthy IoT lifecycle management is an end-to-end approach from the secure provisioning of keys within the devices, to the proper identification of the users, from the authentication on the network or the network slice, to the secure handling of the data either at stored or in motion. Resources need to be invested long before this to qualify the business model, in prototyping, as well as prototype testing. Most organisations don’t have the resources to counter all the security challenges of their 5G IoT deployments. Businesses will often end up choosing between navigating a risk-laden 5G environment, with inadequate or incomplete trust mechanisms, or outsourcing these requirements. When looking at outsourcing, companies must choose a provider with expertise in digital security, ensuring 5G IoT deployments have data protection and connectivity credentials built in, together with end-to-end data protection solutions such as encryption – protecting data in the device, network, and cloud at rest and in transit. Q: How can wireless modules address new 5G IoT use cases? Wireless modules can be expected to play a bigger role than in previous generations of cellular Jouffrey: As IoT considerations are integrated into the 5G ecosystem, wireless modules can be expected to play a bigger role than in previous generations of cellular. 5G modules support different characteristics to earlier generations – the 5G use cases are much more complex, varied, from high-end use cases requiring high data usage and throughput, such as for industrial routers, to low-throughput, energy consumption optimised devices, as required for some IoT sensors. At the end, compared to the largely one-size-fits-all approach that preceded it, 5G will increase the demand for vertical-tailored wireless modules. Importantly, these wireless modules need to support new data protection and security features that go well beyond conventional compliance to 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards. Due to the extent of personalisation within 5G networks, wireless modules must also offer providers and customers greater security as well as agility all along the device lifespan. Q: What are the new data protection challenges posed by 5G, and how can they be addressed? Jouffrey: The 5G era presents exciting opportunities, as well as security challenges. The greatest risks to enterprise data on 5G networks – including eavesdropping, man-in the middle attacks, denial of services, loss or compromisation of data – were already known in 4G. The 5G standards have looked at providing answers to these threats and come with some noticeable improvements, such as the encryption of the international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), otherwise known as the Subscription Permanent Identifier in 5G. But what’s different with 5G is the threat surface area, due notably to the variety of devices that will be used over these 5G networks and the underlying technologies used for the deployment of the networks, such as cloud native virtualisation. On top of this, it’s the first generation of cellular to launch in an era of global cyber-crime, funded by organised crime and states alike. So, whilst enterprises should look to the ecosystem of telecom operators and cloud providers, vendors, and system operators to help understand the opportunities presented by 5G – this same ecosystem needs to guide them in countering any new risks that the 5G architecture may pose. The key to securing 5G enabled devices is to build security into devices from the outset using encryption. The key to securing 5G enabled devices is to build security into devices from the outset Q: What new roles can the 5G embedded universal integrated circuit card (eSIM) endorse in network authentication? Jouffrey: 5G is the first generation of cellular to launch in a buoyant eSIM market. The eSIM will be key in supporting network slicing authentication and security, enabling enterprises to leverage their credentials to pre-select network slices. However, to support secure authentication for mobile networks that may require the usage of different authentication algorithms over time, these 5G eSIMs must support this flexibility of usage of multiple authentication and authorisation credentials. With this capability built into these eSIMs from the start, mobile operators can remotely swap the authentication algorithm either for a dedicated primary authentication, or in a definitive way, thanks to key rotation management, thus maintaining a trusted environment.