Experimental resources needed to implement photon number splitting attack in quantum cryptography

The analysis of the security of quantum key distribution systems with respect to an attack with nondemolishing measurement of the number of photons (photon number splitting—PNS attack) is carried out under the assumption that in the communication channel in each parcel there is a pure Fock state with a different number of photons, and the distribution of states by number of photons has Poisson statistics. In reality, in the communication channel in each parcel there are not individual Fock states, but a pure coherent state with a random phase—a superposition of Fock states with different numbers of photons. The paper analyzes the necessary experimental resources necessary to prepare individual Fock states with a certain number of photons from the superposition of Fock states for a PNS attack. Optical schemes for implementing such an attack are given, and estimates of experimental parameters at which a PNS attack is possible are made.

Photon-number Splitting Attack on SARG04 Protocol

Network protection, an essential interest has migrated within this area particularly with the development of hacking, the strategies, as well as the penetration of the most effective blanketed networks. It can be stated that all the methods and protocols applied failed to forestall the intruder’s attacks, consequently many researches grew to favor quantum mechanics over create non-intrusive methods. Many scientists and researchers have introduced other cryptographic subjects in quantum computing which is known as quantum key distribution protocol. In this paper, which is an extension to our preceding work (Mustafa et al., 2019), the simulation of the overall performance of SARG04 protocol had been examined in opposition to the most time-honored attack: Photon-number splitting (PNS) assault in the quantum channel. The data received showed results that obtained high resistance against PNS attack, due to the method that was used in the sifting stage.

Security of a control key in quantum key distribution

Quantum key distribution (QKD) schemes rely on the randomness to exchange secret keys between two parties. A control key to generate the same (pseudo)-randomness for the key exchanging parties increases the key exchange rate. However, the use of pseudo-randomness where true randomness is required makes a classical system vulnerable to the known plain-text attack. Contrary to the belief of unavailability of this attack in QKD, we show that this attack is actually possible whenever a control key is employed. In this paper, we show that it is possible to make use of the uncertainty principle to not only avoid this attack, but also remove the hazards of photon-number splitting attack in quantum setting. We define the secrecy of control key based on the guessing probability, and propose a scheme to achieve this defined secrecy. We show the general applicability of our framework on the most common QKD schemes.