Palo Alto Networks and AT&T

Palo Alto Networks and AT&T Business announced Secure Connectivity solutions for business customers, emphasizing quantum-readiness as a strategic necessity rather than a future concern. The collaboration integrates Prisma SD-WAN’s cryptographic innovation with AT&T’s global network to deliver the Quantum-Resilient SASE Fabric, addressing risks posed by quantum computing to classical encryption methods like RSA and Diffie-Hellman. Quantum computers, leveraging Shor’s Algorithm, could render these encryption methods obsolete by drastically reducing decryption times from millennia to hours, necessitating immediate upgrades to post-quantum cryptography (PQC).

Palo Alto Networks is embedding PQC as a core component of the Prisma SASE fabric, transitioning from traditional hardware upgrades to a software-defined, standards-based approach. This architecture separates management and data planes, ensuring security is inherent to the network infrastructure rather than an add-on. AT&T’s role underscores the operational mandate for PQC, particularly in serving highly regulated industries where security must be embedded in the transport layer and connectivity infrastructure itself.

The partnership leverages AT&T’s global network, spanning 5G, fiber, and legacy underlays, to provide quantum-safe connectivity without performance trade-offs. By integrating Service Provider Interconnect (SPI), business traffic connects directly to AT&T’s private network core, avoiding the latency and complexity of software tunnels over the public internet. This ensures high performance while enabling next-generation encryption, addressing historical concerns about encryption’s impact on latency and throughput.

The solution targets the decentralized nature of modern business operations, where remote branches, mobile sites, and 5G-connected devices represent critical security points. Using Hybrid Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), the framework issues dual credentials—classical and quantum-resistant—to secure these edge locations, ensuring compatibility with existing systems while mitigating quantum decryption risks. The collaboration provides a practical path to quantum resilience, positioning enterprises to protect data against future threats while maintaining operational continuity.