Enhancements to Prepare-and-Measure Based QKD Protocols

Peter Y. A. Ryan

Yong-Gang Tan

The prepare-and-measure quantum key distribution (QKD) has the merits of fast speed, high key generation rate, and easy implementation. However, the detector side channel attacks greatly undermine the security of the key bits. The eavesdropper, Eve, exploits the flaws of the detectors to obtain illegal information without violating quantum principles. It means that she can intervene in the communication without being detected. A prepare-and-measure Bell test protocol will be proposed. By randomly carrying out Bell test at the side of the information receiver, Bob, Eve's illegal information gain within the detector side channel attack can be well bounded. This protocol does not require any improvement on the detectors used in available prepare-and-measure QKD. Though we only illustrate its application in the BB84 protocol, it is applicable for any prepare-and-measure QKD.

Ramona Wolf

Sakshi Singh, Avdhesh Gupta, Anu Chaudhary

Key negotiation plays an important role in ensuring secure communication channel, and establishes confidentiality between parties. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) represents an advanced and highly secure method for distributing cryptographic keys between involved parties. Multiple QKD implementation possibilities have led to the upgrading of various QKD protocols. Quantum key distribution involves two types of protocols approaches prepare-and-measure and entanglement based, this paper focuses entanglement-based protocol. Prepare-and-measure protocols are vulnerable to certain attacks and have lower key generation rate as compared to entanglement based protocol. Entanglement is certified as a key element in the arena of quantum information processing, contributing in applications like quantum cryptography, quantum computation and quantum communication. Entanglement leads to the phenomenon known as entanglement swapping, entanglement swapping phenomenon involves parties getting entangled without interacting with each other. This research focuses on the advantages and the security provided by entanglement swapping in quantum key distribution. Blockchain also utilizes key distribution process with the involvement of classical cryptography. Classical cryptography blockchain are not quantum-resistant, blockchain with quantum computing infrastructure are more advance and secure. Implementing entanglement swapping in the infrastructure of blockchain can make the blockchain quantum-resistant to secure communication and transactions. Within this manuscript, we theoretically study the entanglement swapping of Bell states in quantum key distribution and propose an idea of blockchain with entanglement swapping to enhance quantum resistance. This study also explores the employing of entanglement swapping in cloud infrastructure.

Rainu Nandal, Ashish Nandal, Kamaldeep Joshi +1 more

Neha Sharma, Vikas Saxena