Quantum XChange®, a leader in quantum-safe network security, today announced that it has joined the Cisco Networking App Marketplace as a Cisco Technology Partner. Phio TX-EM, the company’s containerized post-quantum cryptography (PQC) key management application for Cisco networking platforms, is now listed in the Marketplace catalog, making it the first FIPS-validated PQC solution available in the Marketplace and giving Cisco customers, sellers, and channel partners worldwide a direct path to quantum-safe networking on their current Cisco infrastructure.

“Federal mandates and industry timelines are landing ahead of most hardware refresh cycles, and the data adversaries harvest today is already gone regardless of the deadline,” said Tom Butta, Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer at Quantum XChange. “Phio TX-EM is a FIPS-validated container that delivers quantum-safe keys to the network through Cisco’s SKIP API, running on Cisco platforms customers already operate, with no added hardware, no downtime, and no additional performance impact. The Marketplace listing signals to Cisco customers that Phio TX-EM is a verified option as they plan their post-quantum migrations.”

Software-Based Quantum-Safe Networking

Phio TX-EM is a virtualized container application that runs natively on Cisco SKIP-enabled devices that support third-party containers including the Cisco Catalyst 8000 Series products, and Nexus switches. It extends Quantum XChange’s Phio TX® cryptographic management platform into the network itself, delivering:

  • Native container deployment. Provisioning, installation, configuration, and distribution of Phio TX key management happen over the network, as an integrated process within the network itself – no standalone key management appliance required.

  • Drop-in integration. Phio TX-EM runs as software on the Cisco router, so network teams can deploy and manage it with existing tools and IT expertise. Deep PQC expertise is not required.

  • A tighter security boundary. With Phio TX-EM, SKIP requests are kept within the device boundary of the Cisco router, providing the most secure SKIP implementation available.

  • NIST-validated cryptography. Phio TX-EM is FIPS 140-3 Level 2 and FIPS 203 validated. NIST 2023 Entropy Source Validation provides true randomness in key generation for defense-in-depth assurance.

  • Secure by design. Static private or pre-shared keys are never stored; ephemeral PQC keypairs are generated dynamically and deleted after each use. Symmetric keys travel out-of-band, on a separate path from the encrypted data, so capturing the traffic never yields the keys to decrypt it.

  • Built for large-key algorithms. Phio TX supports large-key sized algorithms like classic McEliece with no network frame changes required. Algorithm changes can be managed dynamically on-the-fly with no network downtime.

  • Built for complex enterprise networks. Continuous key rotation and multipath, intelligent key routing deliver keys across distributed, multi-site architectures, including Cisco technologies like DMVPN. Phio TX’s mesh-based Hive architecture provides unified key management across every node.

Together, these capabilities let organizations make classic encryption quantum safe today – protecting against “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” attacks – while giving them true crypto-agility to update algorithms on the fly without router configuration changes or disruption to the network traffic, as NIST and international standards evolve.

Availability

Phio TX-EM is listed now in the Cisco Networking App Marketplace. To learn more or see a product demo, please contact us through Cisco Marketplace: https://marketplace.cisco.com/en-US/apps/872594/phio-tx-em-(container)

About Quantum XChange

Quantum XChange® empowers leading government agencies and commercial enterprises to secure sensitive network data from advances in AI and quantum computing by protecting their data-in-motion today and for the post-quantum world. Its cryptographic management platform, Phio TX®, provides an open, secure, and flexible architecture solution. For more information, visit www.quantumxc.com.

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