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arXiv:1403.0143

Preventing detector blinding attack and other random number generator attacks on quantum cryptography by use of an explicit random number generator

Mario Stipčević

Published Mar 2, 2014• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A particularly successful detector blinding attack has been recently demonstrated on various quantum key distribution (QKD) systems, performing for the first time an undetectable and complete recovery of the key. In this paper two original contributions are given to understanding and prevention of this attack.
DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1403.0143

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In the recent decade, it has been discovered that QKD systems are extremely vulnerable to side-channel attacks. In particular, by exploiting the internal working knowledge of practical detectors, it is possible to bring them to an operating region whereby only certain target detectors are sensitive to detections. Crucially, the adversary can use this loophole to learn everything about the secret key without introducing any error to the quantum channel. In this paper, as a step toward overcoming detector blinding attacks, we focus on an experimentally convenient countermeasure, where the efficiency of the detectors is randomly varied.
True randomness is necessary for the security of any cryptographic protocol, including quantum key distribution (QKD). In QKD transceivers, randomness is supplied by one or more local, private entropy sources of quantum origin which can be either passive (e.g., a beam splitter) or active (e.g., an electronic quantum random number generator). In order to better understand the role of randomness in QKD, I revisit the well-known "detector blinding" attack on the BB84 QKD protocol, which utilizes strong light to achieve undetectable and complete recovery of the secret key. I present two findings. First, I show that the detector-blinding attack was in fact an attack on the receiver's local entropy source. Second, based on this insight, I propose a modified receiver station and a statistical criterion which together enable the robust detection of any bright-light attack and thus restore security.
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Abstract Randomness, mainly in the form of random numbers, is the fundamental prerequisite for the security of many cryptographic tasks. Quantum randomness can be extracted even if adversaries are fully aware of the protocol and even control the randomness source. However, an adversary can further manipulate the randomness via detector blinding attacks, which are a hacking attack suffered by protocols with trusted detectors. Here, by treating no-click events as valid error events, we propose a quantum random number generation protocol that can simultaneously address source vulnerability and ferocious detector blinding attacks. The method can be extended to high-dimensional random number generation. We experimentally demonstrate the ability of our protocol to generate random numbers for two-dimensional measurement with a generation speed of 0.515 Mbps, which is two orders of magnitude higher than that of device-independent protocols that can address both issues of imperfect sources and imperfect detectors.