Certificate Analyzer
Analyzes SSL/TLS certificates and live HTTPS endpoints for quantum cryptography vulnerabilities. Results are scored using the unified Quantum Risk Engine shared across all Rivet analyzers.
Input Methods
- Hostname scan — connects to a live host on port 443 (or custom port) and retrieves the full certificate chain
- File upload — analyze
.pem, .crt, .cer, or .p7b files directly - Bulk scan — scan a list of hostnames from a CSV or newline-delimited text file
Result Fields Explained
Top-Level Scores
| Field | Range | What it means |
|---|
| Quantum Risk Score | 0 – 100 | Composite score from four weighted components (see Risk Score Breakdown below). Higher = more vulnerable. This is the primary number to act on. |
| Security Grade | A – F | Letter grade derived from the Quantum Risk Score: A (<20), B (20–39), C (40–59), D (60–79), F (80+). |
| Threat Level | minimal / low / medium / high / critical | The highest quantum threat level that falls within the certificate's remaining lifetime, based on the quantum computing development timeline. A certificate expiring in 36 days faces a lower threat level than one expiring in 5 years. |
| Migration | monitor / plan / prepare / urgent / immediate | Recommended migration urgency. Derived from threat level and certificate lifetime. Monitor means no action needed now; immediate means begin migration this quarter. |
| PQC Ready | Ready / Not Ready | Whether the certificate uses a NIST-approved post-quantum algorithm (ML-DSA, ML-KEM, SLH-DSA, FALCON, CRYSTALS-Dilithium/Kyber). Almost all certificates in use today show Not Ready. |
| Days to Expiry | integer | Calendar days until the certificate's notAfter date. Negative values mean the certificate is already expired. Short-lived certificates carry lower quantum risk because they will be replaced before quantum computers become a practical threat. |
Risk Score Breakdown
The Quantum Risk Score is a weighted sum of four component scores, each normalized to 0–100 before weighting.
| Component | Weight | What drives it |
|---|
| Algorithm Risk | 40% | How vulnerable the certificate's public key algorithm and key size are to Shor's algorithm. RSA-2048 scores 85; RSA-4096 scores 78; ECDSA P-256 scores 85; ECDSA P-521 scores 45. DSA/DH score 35 by default. A PQC-ready algorithm deducts 10 points. |
| Timeline Risk | 25% | Whether a quantum computer capable of breaking this certificate's algorithm is expected to exist before the certificate expires. A cert expiring in 36 days scores near 0 here; one expiring in 2030 scores higher because RSA-2048 is expected to be breakable by then. |
| Business Impact | 20% | Contextual factors: business criticality (standard by default), compliance requirements (FIPS-140, FedRAMP, HIPAA, etc.), certificate chain length, and whether it is a CA certificate. Without user-supplied context, this defaults to a moderate baseline score. |
| PQC Readiness | 15% | Whether the certificate already uses a NIST-approved PQC algorithm or hybrid scheme. Most certificates score 0 here today. A certificate using ML-DSA or CRYSTALS-Dilithium would score near 95. |
Shor Algorithm Threat
| Field | What it means |
|---|
| Status | VULNERABLE if the public key algorithm (RSA, ECDSA, DSA, DH) is broken by Shor's algorithm on a sufficiently large quantum computer. NOT VULNERABLE for PQC algorithms. |
| Security Level | Classical security in bits. RSA-2048 ≈ 112 bits; RSA-3072 ≈ 128 bits; RSA-4096 ≈ 152 bits; ECDSA P-256 ≈ 128 bits; ECDSA P-384 ≈ 192 bits. Shor's algorithm reduces this to near zero regardless of key size. |
| Break Timeline | Estimated year range when a quantum computer is expected to be large enough to break this specific algorithm and key size. RSA-2048: 2028–2032. RSA-4096: 2035–2040. ECDSA P-256: 2028–2032. ECDSA P-521: 2032–2037. |
| Algorithm | The detected public key algorithm (RSA, ECDSA, DSA, DH). |
Grover Algorithm Impact
Grover's algorithm affects symmetric encryption and hash functions — not public key algorithms. It halves the effective security level of symmetric keys.
| Field | What it means |
|---|
| Impact Level | LOW (AES-256 cipher suite — reduced to 128-bit effective security, still acceptable), MODERATE (AES-128 — reduced to 64-bit effective security, below recommended), CRITICAL (DES/3DES — completely broken), UNKNOWN (cipher suite not detected). |
| Security Reduction | Grover's algorithm provides a quadratic speedup, effectively halving the bit-security of any symmetric primitive. |
| Timeline | Grover's algorithm impact on symmetric crypto is expected to become significant by 2030–2035 as quantum hardware scales. |
| Affected | Symmetric encryption (AES, DES) and hash functions (SHA-1, SHA-256) used in the TLS cipher suite. |
Migration Timeline
| Field | What it means |
|---|
| Priority | One of: Monitor, Plan, Prepare, Urgent, Immediate. Derived from the threat level during the certificate's lifetime. A certificate expiring before any quantum threat milestone shows Monitor. |
| Deadline | Recommended date to complete migration. For Monitor priority, no deadline is set. For Urgent, the deadline is approximately 1 year from scan date. For Prepare, approximately 2 years. |
| Cert Expires | The certificate's notAfter date. If this date is before the quantum break timeline for the algorithm, the certificate will naturally be replaced before it becomes a quantum risk. |
Recommendations
Recommendations are grouped into three time horizons:
- Immediate (0–6 months) — actions required now, typically for high/critical risk scores
- Short-term (6–18 months) — migration planning steps such as upgrading key sizes, enabling TLS 1.3, and testing hybrid certificates
- Long-term (1–3 years) — full migration to NIST-approved PQC algorithms and crypto-agility framework implementation
Compliance & Business Impact
| Field | What it means |
|---|
| Compliance Implications | Regulatory frameworks relevant to quantum migration: NIST SP 800-208 (PQC migration guidance), NSA CNSS Advisory 15-01 (quantum-safe requirements for national security systems), FedRAMP, FIPS-140, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, ITAR. These are shown when the certificate's risk level may affect compliance posture. |
| Business Risk Factors | Contextual risks such as long certificate lifetime (increases quantum exposure window), below-recommended key sizes, CA certificate status (affects entire PKI chain), and complex certificate chains. |
Algorithm Risk Reference
| Algorithm | Key Size | Algorithm Risk Score | Quantum Status |
|---|
| RSA | 1024 | 95 | Critical — breakable by 2026 |
| RSA | 2048 | 85 | High — breakable by 2030 |
| RSA | 3072 | 70 | Medium — breakable by 2033 |
| RSA | 4096 | 78 | Lower — breakable by 2035+ |
| ECDSA | P-256 | 85 | High — breakable by 2030 |
| ECDSA | P-384 | 65 | Medium — breakable by 2035 |
| ECDSA | P-521 | 45 | Lower — breakable by 2040 |
| DSA / DH | any | 35 | High — Shor's algorithm applicable |
| ML-DSA (Dilithium) | — | 0 | Safe — NIST FIPS 204 |
| ML-KEM (Kyber) | — | 0 | Safe — NIST FIPS 203 |
| SLH-DSA (SPHINCS+) | — | 0 | Safe — NIST FIPS 205 |
| FALCON (FN-DSA) | — | 0 | Safe — NIST approved |
Quantum Computing Threat Timeline
Risk scores are calibrated against this timeline. A certificate's threat level is the highest milestone that falls within its remaining lifetime.
| Year | Threat Level | Algorithms at Risk |
|---|
| 2024–2025 | Minimal | None — current quantum computers insufficient for cryptographic attacks |
| 2026 | Low | RSA-512, ECC-160, DES, weak DH (~1,000 logical qubits) |
| 2030 | Medium | RSA-2048, ECDSA P-256, DH-2048, SHA-1 (~4,000 logical qubits) |
| 2035 | High | RSA-4096, ECDSA P-384, DH-4096, SHA-224 (~10,000 logical qubits) |
| 2040 | Critical | All classical public-key cryptography (>20,000 logical qubits) |
Certificate Technical Details
The raw certificate fields shown at the bottom of each result:
| Field | What it means |
|---|
| Subject | The entity the certificate was issued to (RFC 4514 distinguished name format, e.g. CN=cwpharmacy.com,O=...,C=US). |
| Issuer | The Certificate Authority that signed this certificate. |
| Serial Number | Unique identifier assigned by the CA. Used for revocation (CRL/OCSP). |
| Version | X.509 version. Version 3 (value = 2) is standard and required for extensions like SAN and key usage. |
| Signature Algorithm | The algorithm the CA used to sign this certificate (e.g. sha256WithRSAEncryption). Distinct from the public key algorithm — both should be assessed. |
| Public Key Algorithm | The algorithm of the certificate's own public key (RSA, ECDSA, DSA). This is what Shor's algorithm targets. |
| Key Size | Bit length of the public key. For RSA: 2048, 3072, 4096. For ECDSA: the curve's key size in bits (256, 384, 521). |
| Curve Name | For ECDSA certificates: the named elliptic curve (e.g. prime256v1 = P-256, secp384r1 = P-384). |
| Not Before / Not After | Certificate validity window. The certificate is only valid between these two dates. |
| TLS Version | The TLS protocol version negotiated during the live scan (TLSv1.2, TLSv1.3). TLS 1.3 is required for PQC cipher suite support. |
| Cipher Suite | The symmetric cipher and MAC negotiated for the TLS session (e.g. TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384). Determines Grover's algorithm impact on the session. |
