Effect of source tampering in the security of quantum cryptography
Name
PhysRevA.92.022304.pdf
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465.01 KB
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Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Sun, Shi-Hai
Xu, Feihu
Jiang, Mu-Sheng
Ma, Xiang-Chun
Lo, Hoi-Kwong
Liang, Lin-Mei
Date Issued
August 2015
Journal
Physical Review A
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Sun, Shi-Hai, Feihu Xu, Mu-Sheng Jiang, Xiang-Chun Ma, Hoi-Kwong Lo, and Lin-Mei Liang. "Effect of source tampering in the security of quantum cryptography." Phys. Rev. A 92, 022304 (August 2015). © 2015 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The security of source has become an increasingly important issue in quantum cryptography. Based on the framework of measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD), the source becomes the only region exploitable by a potential eavesdropper (Eve). Phase randomization is a cornerstone assumption in most discrete-variable (DV) quantum communication protocols (e.g., QKD, quantum coin tossing, weak-coherent-state blind quantum computing, and so on), and the violation of such an assumption is thus fatal to the security of those protocols. In this paper, we show a simple quantum hacking strategy, with commercial and homemade pulsed lasers, by Eve that allows her to actively tamper with the source and violate such an assumption, without leaving a trace afterwards. Furthermore, our attack may also be valid for continuous-variable (CV) QKD, which is another main class of QKD protocol, since, excepting the phase random assumption, other parameters (e.g., intensity) could also be changed, which directly determine the security of CV-QKD.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.92.022304
