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Advanced materials research

Attacking a Measurement Device Independent Practical Quantum-Key-Distribution System with Wavelength-Dependent Beam-Splitter and Multi-Wavelength Sources

Tao Yu, 安辉耀 AN Hui-yao, Dun Wei Liu

Published Jun 1, 2014• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

It is known that practical quantum key distribution system, because of the imperfect of devices, has sort of loopholes, so Eve can attack through these loopholes. The proposition of measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol claimed to solve all the loopholes at the detector side. However the proof of MDI-QKD is based on the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect at 50:50 beam splitter. And with current experimental technology, a realistic beam splitter, made by fused biconical technology, has a wavelength-dependent property. Based on this fatal security loophole, the author propose a wavelength-dependent attacking protocol, which can be applied to practical MDI-QKD systems. Through this attacking protocol the author theoretical estimated that the eavesdropper could get 70% of the encoding information with a QBER of only 0.04.

DOI
10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.945-949.2277

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It is known that practical quantum key distribution system, because of the imperfect of devices, has sort of loopholes, so Eve can attack through these loopholes. The proposition of measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol claimed to solve all the loopholes at the detector side. However the proof of MDI-QKD is based on the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect at 50:50 beam splitter. And with current experimental technology, a realistic beam splitter, made by fused biconical technology, has a wavelength-dependent property. Based on this fatal security loophole, the author propose a wavelength-dependent attacking protocol, which can be applied to practical MDI-QKD systems. Through this attacking protocol the author theoretical estimated that the eavesdropper could get 70% of the encoding information with a QBER of only 0.04.
It is well known that the unconditional security of quantum-key distribution (QKD) can be guaranteed by quantum mechanics. However, practical QKD systems have some imperfections, which can be controlled by the eavesdropper to attack the secret key. With current experimental technology, a realistic beam splitter, made by fused biconical technology, has a wavelength-dependent property. Based on this fatal security loophole, we propose a wavelength-dependent attacking protocol, which can be applied to all practical QKD systems with passive state modulation. Moreover, we experimentally attack a practical polarization encoding QKD system to obtain all the secret key information at the cost of only increasing the quantum bit error rate from 1.31.31.3 to 1.41.4%1.4.
Recently, to bridge the gap between security of Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) and a high key rate, a novel protocol, the so-called detector-device-independent QKD (DDI-QKD), has been independently proposed by several groups and has attracted great interest. A higher key rate is obtained, since a single photon bell state measurement (BSM) setup is applied to DDI-QKD. Subsequently, Qi has proposed two attacks for this protocol. However, the first attack, in which Bob's BSM setup is assumed to be completely a "black box", is easily prevented by using some additional monitoring devices or by specifically characterizing the BSM. The second attack, which combines the blinding attack and the detector wavelength-dependent efficiency, is not explicitly discussed, and its feasibility is not experimentally confirmed. Here, we show that the second attack is not technically viable because of an intrinsically wavelength-dependent property of a realistic beam splitter, which is an essential component in DDI-QKD. Moreover, we propose a feasible attack that combines a well-known attack-detector blinding attack with intrinsic imperfections of single-photon detectors. The experimental measurement and proof-of-principle test results confirm that our attack can allow Eve to get a copy of quantum keys without being detected and that it is feasible with current technology.
In the practical Quantum Key Distribution(QKD)systems,the beam splitter which made by the Fused Biconical Taper(FTP)technology has wavelength dependent property.So Eve will get almost all of the secret information without being discovered in this way.In this paper,we proposed a solution for beating the beam splitter attack.Quantum Bit Error Rate(QBER)could increase with Rayleigh scattering effect in the fiber channel,but in our schemes this effect could do very less by different wavelength photos.Wavelength Division Multiplexing(WDM)would separate photos by their different wavelength,and Bob can choose some reliable photos for QKD.Eve won't catch anything about the secret information.
Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD), which is immune to all detector side-channel attacks, is the most promising solution to the security issues in practical quantum key distribution systems. Although several experimental demonstrations of MDI-QKD have been reported, they all make one crucial but not yet verified assumption, that is, there are no flaws in state preparation. Such an assumption is unrealistic and security loopholes remain in the source. Here we present a MDI-QKD experiment with the modulation error taken into consideration. By applying the loss-tolerant security proof by Tamaki et al. [Phys. Rev. A 90, 052314 (2014)], we distribute secure keys over fiber links up to 40 km with imperfect sources, which would not have been possible under previous security proofs. By simultaneously closing loopholes at the detectors and a critical loophole---modulation error in the source, our work shows the feasibility of secure QKD with practical imperfect devices.
Decoy-state measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) is regarded as one of the most promising protocols since it is physically immune to all fatal detection-side attacks. However, the loopholes in the source side still open side channels to eavesdroppers. Previous work has indicated that a system is insecure if its decoy-state modulation is inaccurate, but a practical method for Eve to exploit the inaccurate modulation is still absent. In this work, we propose a practical hacking method and provide a detailed theoretical analysis. Using our method, we experimentally hacked a MDI-QKD system and successfully obtained all final keys. By demonstrating the hacking experiment, we hope to bring attention to source-side security and provide inspiration for the development of protocols with better source-side security.
In the practical Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) systems, the Fused Biconical Taper (FTP) technology beam splitter (BS) has wavelength dependent property.So Eve will get almost all of the secret information without being discovered in the beam splitter attack.This paper proposes a solution to solve the beam splitter attack.It uses three beam splitters to remove the incredible photons which could have been attacked by Eve. Bob gets a proper three-beam-splitter group, so Eve can't catch any secret information without being found.