Cryptographic agility is gaining attention due to its crucial role in maintaining cryptographic security in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. However, despite its increasing importance, the term cryptographic agility remains vaguely defined and there is no clear consensus on its exact meaning. This lack of clarity poses a challenge since the need for agility becomes more urgent as new cryptographic vulnerabilities and advanced computing threats emerge, emphasizing the need for a systematic approach to clarify and refine the notion on cryptographic agility. In this paper, we systematize the concept of cryptographic agility by providing three research contributions. First, we review current definitions across academic and gray literature, identifying six distinct categories to differentiate every aspect within the definitions. Second, we synthesize these insights to establish a comprehensive, canonical definition of cryptographic agility. Third, we explore the relationship between cryptographic agility and the related concepts cryptographic versatility and interoperability. In our discussion, we examine the relevance of cryptographic agility, highlight its trade-offs with complexity, assess its individual applicability, and illustrate its various contexts by offering an additional application-specific definition. Our work provides a new perspective on cryptographic agility and related concepts, based on systematical research to clarify and enhance its future use.

翻译：密码学敏捷性因其在快速发展的技术环境中维护密码安全的关键作用而日益受到关注。然而，尽管其重要性不断提升，"密码学敏捷性"这一术语的定义仍然模糊，且对其确切含义尚未形成明确共识。这种概念上的不清晰构成了挑战，因为随着新型密码学漏洞和先进计算威胁的出现，对敏捷性的需求变得愈发紧迫，这凸显了需要一种系统化方法来澄清和完善密码学敏捷性概念的必要性。本文通过提供三项研究贡献，对密码学敏捷性概念进行了系统化梳理。首先，我们回顾了学术文献和灰色文献中的现有定义，识别出六个不同的类别以区分定义中的各个方面。其次，我们综合这些见解，建立了一个全面、规范的密码学敏捷性定义。第三，我们探讨了密码学敏捷性与相关概念——密码学多功能性和互操作性——之间的关系。在讨论中，我们审视了密码学敏捷性的相关性，强调了其与复杂性的权衡，评估了其个体适用性，并通过提供一个额外的应用特定定义来阐释其多样化的应用场景。我们的工作基于系统化研究，为澄清和提升密码学敏捷性及相关概念的未来应用提供了新的视角。