Cryptographic agility

In cryptographic protocol design, cryptographic agility or crypto-agility is the ability to switch between multiple cryptographic primitives.

A cryptographically agile system implementing a particular standard can choose which combination of primitives to use. The primary goal of cryptographic agility is to enable rapid adaptations of new cryptographic primitives and algorithms without making disruptive changes to the system's infrastructure.

Cryptographic agility acts as a safety measure or an incident response mechanism for when a cryptographic primitive of a system is discovered to be vulnerable. A security system is considered crypto-agile if its cryptographic algorithms or parameters can be replaced with ease and is at least partly automated. The impending arrival of a quantum computer that can break existing asymmetric cryptography is raising awareness of the importance of cryptographic agility.