Building a Distributed Cryptographic Bill of Materials Architecture for the Post‑Quantum Era
Abstract
As organizations prepare for the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) era, they face a critical challenge: gaining comprehensive visibility into the cryptographic assets scattered across their infrastructure. This paper presents the architecture of a distributed Cryptographic Bill of Materials (CBOM) system that combines static analysis with runtime monitoring to provide complete cryptographic observability.
The proposed architecture addresses a fundamental gap in existing approaches: static analysis alone cannot capture the cryptographic operations that actually occur at runtime, while runtime monitoring alone lacks the context of what was intended. By correlating both data sources, organizations can detect configuration drift, shadow cryptography, and migration gaps — the three most critical risk factors in any PQC transition.
Key Sections
Architecture Overview
Distributed agent-collector model with three data acquisition layers: static filesystem analysis, kernel-level runtime tracing, and passive network monitoring.
Agent Design
Lightweight C-based agents (~2MB footprint) deployed on every endpoint. Zero-overhead eBPF probes for production-safe runtime observation without application modification.
CBOM Generation
CycloneDX-compliant Cryptographic Bill of Materials generation with PQC classification against 48+ NIST algorithms. Supports firmware, containers, and bare-metal systems.
Correlation Engine
The core innovation: matching static CBOM assets against runtime observations to detect drift, shadow crypto, and verify migration completeness.
Policy Engine
Continuous compliance evaluation against organizational policies and regulatory frameworks (CNSA 2.0, HIPAA, SOX). Automated alerting and reporting.
Quantum-Safe Transport
Agent-to-collector communication secured with TLS 1.3, mutual TLS, and pre-shared key support for quantum-resistant key establishment.
The Core Insight
Traditional security tools treat cryptographic configuration as a point-in-time audit. But cryptographic posture is dynamic — it changes with every deployment, library update, and configuration change. A CBOM must be a living document that reflects both what is intended and what is actually running.
Three-Layer Data Acquisition
Static Layer
Filesystem scanning of binaries, libraries, certificates, and configuration files. Generates baseline CBOM with algorithm inventory and PQC classification.
Runtime Layer
eBPF probes on OpenSSL/libcrypto function calls. Captures actual algorithm usage, key sizes, and cipher suite negotiations without application modification.
Network Layer
Passive protocol analysis of TLS 1.3, SSH, IKEv2, and QUIC. First-flight packet inspection reveals cipher suite capabilities and PQC support in transit.
Read the Full Paper
The complete whitepaper includes detailed architecture diagrams, implementation specifics, performance benchmarks, and deployment strategies.
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