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Laser Physics Letters

Lightweight authenticated semi-quantum key distribution protocol without trojan horse attack

Chia‐Wei Tsai, Chun‐Wei Yang

Published Jun 19, 2020• 24 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract A lightweight authenticated semi-quantum key distribution (LASQKD) protocol is proposed for secure communication. By pre-sharing a master key and adopting a one-way communication strategy, the proposed protocol allows a quantum user and a classical user to share secret keys without using an authenticated classical channel and any Trojan horse detection device. Security analyses show that the proposed LASQKD protocol is free from well-known attacks, and a simulation implementation proves the feasibility of the proposed protocol. Compared to existing authenticated semi-quantum key distribution protocols, the protocol proposed herein provides improved practicality, indicating its potential for use in modern quantum systems.

DOI
10.1088/1612-202x/ab9444

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Abstract A lightweight authenticated semi-quantum key distribution (LASQKD) protocol is proposed for secure communication. By pre-sharing a master key and adopting a one-way communication strategy, the proposed protocol allows a quantum user and a classical user to share secret keys without using an authenticated classical channel and any Trojan horse detection device. Security analyses show that the proposed LASQKD protocol is free from well-known attacks, and a simulation implementation proves the feasibility of the proposed protocol. Compared to existing authenticated semi-quantum key distribution protocols, the protocol proposed herein provides improved practicality, indicating its potential for use in modern quantum systems.
Classical users can share a secret key with a quantum user by using a semi-quantum key distribution (SQKD) protocol. Allowing two classical users to share a secret key is the objective of the mediated semi-quantum key distribution (MSQKD) protocol. However, the existing MSQKD protocols need a quantum user to assist two classical users in distributing the secret keys, and these protocols require that the classical users be equipped with a Trojan horse photon detector. This reduces the practicability of the MSQKD protocols. Therefore, in this study we propose a lightweight MSQKD, in which the two participants and third party are classical users. Due to the usage of the one-way transmission strategy, the proposed lightweight MSQKD protocol is free from quantum Trojan horse attack. The proposed MSQKD is more practical than the existing MSQKD protocols.
Due to the exiting semi-quantum secret sharing protocol have two challenges including (1) the dealer must be the quantum user, and (2) the classical users must equip with the Trojan Horse detectors, this study wants to propose a novel mediate semi-quantum secret sharing (MSQSS) protocol to let a classical dealer can share his/her secrets to the classical agents with the help of a dishonest third-party (TP). The proposed MSQSS protocol adopts the one-way quantum communication and thus it is free from the Trojan Horse attacks. Furthermore, the security analysis is given for proving that the proposed protocol can be against the collective attack. Comparing to the exiting SQSS protocols, the proposed MSQSS protocol is more lightweight and more practical.
The mediated semi-quantum key distribution (MSQKD) protocol is an important research issue that lets two classical participants share secret keys securely between each other with the help of a third party (TP). However, in the existing MSQKD protocols, there are two improvable issues, namely (1) the classical participants must be equipped with expensive detectors to avoid Trojan horse attacks and (2) the trustworthiness level of TP must be honest. To the best of our knowledge, none of the existing MSQKD protocols can resolve both these issues. Therefore, this study takes Bell states as the quantum resource to propose a MSQKD protocol, in which the classical participants do not need a Trojan horse detector and the TP is dishonest. Furthermore, the proposed protocol is shown to be secure against well-known attacks and the classical participants only need two quantum capabilities. Therefore, in comparison to the existing MSQKD protocols, the proposed protocol is better practical.
ABSTRACT This study proposes a new lightweight quantum key distribution (LQKD) protocol based on the four‐particle cluster state within a quantum‐restricted environment. The protocol enables a quantum‐capable user to simultaneously establish two separate secret keys with two “classical” users, who are limited to performing only the Hadamard operation and measurements in the basis. By adopting a one‐way qubit transmission approach, the proposed protocol addresses several limitations of existing semi‐quantum key distribution (SQKD) schemes that rely on two‐way or circular transmission methods: (1) it eliminates the need for classical participants to be equipped with costly quantum devices to defend against quantum Trojan horse attacks; (2) it reduces the qubit transmission distance; and (3) it achieves higher qubit efficiency. Consequently, the proposed LQKD protocol is both more lightweight and practical than existing SQKD protocols. Furthermore, the security analysis shows that, in the ideal case, the protocol achieves the same level of security as fully quantum protocols. Finally, the study proves the unconditional security of the protocol in the non‐ideal case, demonstrating a noise tolerance close to that of the BB84 protocol.
Semi-quantum key distribution (SQKD) protocols are used to distribute secret keys between a quantum party and a classical party. However, existing SQKD protocols rely on two-way communication, and may still be vulnerable to Trojan horse side-channel attacks where Eve sends her own photon into a receiver's apparatus and measures the reflected photon to estimate the key. In this paper, we propose a practical SQKD with one-way key. This requires that the single photons travelling through the one-way channel are used to encode bit information, and the returned photons are used to quantify Eve's information, thus reducing the security analysis of the Trojan horse attack in SQKD. Meanwhile, our protocol with one basis enjoys security advantage in practical SQKD systems when source flaws are taken into account. In particular, the present protocol is secure under practical conditions when weak coherent pulses (WCP) are used. Our simulation results show that the protocol using WCP can distribute secret keys over a distance of 110 km without decoy states.