Background: The catastrophic Crowdstrike patch failure of July 19, 2024, exposed criticalvulnerabilities in global healthcare systems, stemming from a memory safety issue in C++ code. This null pointer error, a common pitfall in languages without automatic memorymanagement, led to system-wide failures in Microsoft-based environments while GNU/Linux and Apple systems remained unaffected. This event underscores the urgent need for robust,quantum-resistant cryptographic solutions in healthcare IT infrastructure.

Methods: We developed a protocol for building and benchmarking National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-endorsed classical and post-quantum encryption algorithmson-premesis, using consumer grade Linux computers to prioritize viability for underservedregions & underfunded institutions. We compiled OpenSSL with Open Quantum Safe (OQS) Clibrary to enable post-quantum encryption development that allowed the same level of accessas Crowdstrike's faulty driver code while allowing for bindings with numerous memory safeprogramming languages. Our focus on post-quantum Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) encryption reflects the ubiqutious protection that these protocols provide to securecommunication and knowledge-work as well as the relative ease of hybridization with classicalencryption protocols like Elliptical Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH). Following on-devicecompilation and installation of the encryption binaries, we built and executed an evaluationscript with OpenSSL's native toolkit for twenty-four NIST-endorsed KEM protocols consisting ofclassical, quantum, and hybrid KEM implementations. We evaluated the KEMs on the numberand rate of key generations (keygen), key encapsulation (encap) rate, and key decapsulations(decap) and rated their NIST post-quantum security level according to NIST advancedencryption standard (AES) exaustic key search levels.

Results: We successfully benchmarked all 24 KEM protocols, producing an examplepublic/private key pair following the evaluation. The 24 KEM protocols are evenly split acrossNIST security levels 1, 3, and 5, with 8 protocols at each.We made all relevant code, regulatoryinformation, and the example cryptographic key pairs available on the Qompass AI Github page.We released them under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) to maintain the freeavailability of these encryption tools to benefit communities.Conclusion: Out of the evaluated KEMs, we propose hybrid combinations of ECDH and Kyber for most acute adoption of enhanced encryption protocols due to the layered security of nascentpost-quantum encryption with established efficient classical protocols. Currently, Google Chrome implements Kyber768/X25519 hybrid encryption as part of its Transport Layer Security (TLS), offering a familiar and accessible platform to perform institutional assessements.