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EPJ Quantum Technology

Authentication of variable length messages in quantum key distribution

Khodakhast Bibak, Bruce M. Kapron, Venkatesh Srinivasan

Published Feb 16, 2022• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Authentication plays a critical role in the security of quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols. We propose using Polynomial Hash and its variants for authentication of variable length messages in QKD protocols. Since universal hashing is used not only for authentication in QKD but also in other steps in QKD like error correction and privacy amplification, and also in several other areas of quantum cryptography, Polynomial Hash and its variants as the most efficient universal hash function families can be used in these important steps and areas, as well. We introduce and analyze several efficient variants of Polynomial Hash and, using deep results from number theory, prove that each variant gives an ε-almost-Δ-universal family of hash functions. We also give a general method for transforming any such family to an ε-almost-strongly universal family of hash functions. The latter families can then, among other applications, be used in the Wegman–Carter MAC construction which has been shown to provide a universally composable authentication method in QKD protocols. As Polynomial Hash has found many applications, our constructions and results are potentially of interest in various areas.

DOI
10.1140/epjqt/s40507-022-00127-0

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Abstract Authentication plays a critical role in the security of quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols. We propose using Polynomial Hash and its variants for authentication of variable length messages in QKD protocols. Since universal hashing is used not only for authentication in QKD but also in other steps in QKD like error correction and privacy amplification, and also in several other areas of quantum cryptography, Polynomial Hash and its variants as the most efficient universal hash function families can be used in these important steps and areas, as well. We introduce and analyze several efficient variants of Polynomial Hash and, using deep results from number theory, prove that each variant gives an ε-almost-Δ-universal family of hash functions. We also give a general method for transforming any such family to an ε-almost-strongly universal family of hash functions. The latter families can then, among other applications, be used in the Wegman–Carter MAC construction which has been shown to provide a universally composable authentication method in QKD protocols. As Polynomial Hash has found many applications, our constructions and results are potentially of interest in various areas.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers a very strong property called everlasting security, which says if authentication is unbroken during the execution of QKD, the generated key remains information-theoretically secure indefinitely. For this purpose, we propose the use of certain universal hashing based MACs for use in QKD, which are fast, very efficient with key material, and are shown to be highly secure. Universal hash functions are ubiquitous in computer science with many applications ranging from quantum key distribution and information security to data structures and parallel computing. In QKD, they are used at least for authentication, error correction, and privacy amplification. Using results from Cohen [Duke Math. J., 1954], we also construct some new families of ε\varepsilonε-almost-Δ\DeltaΔ-universal hash function families which have much better collision bounds than the well-known Polynomial Hash. Then we propose a general method for converting any such family to an ε\varepsilonε-almost-strongly universal hash function family, which makes them useful in a wide range of applications, including authentication in QKD.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a secret key agreement technique that consists of two parts: quantum transmission and measurement on a quantum channel, and classical post-processing on a public communication channel. It enjoys provable unconditional security provided that the public communication channel is immutable. Otherwise, QKD is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack. Immutable public communication channels, however, do not exist in practice. So we need to use authentication that implements the properties of an immutable channel as well as possible. One scheme that serves this purpose well is the Wegman-Carter authentication (WCA), which is built upon Almost Strongly Universal2 (ASU2) hashing. This scheme uses a new key in each authentication attempt to select a hash function from an ASU2 family, which is then used to generate the authentication tag for a message. The main focus of this dissertation is on authentication in the context of QKD. We study ASU2 hash functions, security of QKD that employs a computationally secure authentication, and also security of authentication with a partially known key. Specifically, we study the following. First, Universal hash functions and their constructions are reviewed, and as well as a new construction of ASU2 hash functions is presented. Second, security of QKD that employs a specific computationally secure authentication is studied. We present detailed attacks on various practical implementations of QKD that employs this authentication. We also provide countermeasures and prove necessary and sufficient conditions for upgrading the security of the authentication to the level of unconditional security. Third, Universal hash function based multiple authentication is studied. This uses a fixed ASU2 hash function followed by one-time pad encryption, to keep the hash function secret. We show that the one-time pad is necessary in every round for the authentication to be unconditionally secure. Lastly, we study security of the WCA scheme, in the case of a partially known authentication key. Here we prove tight information-theoretic security bounds and also analyse security using witness indistinguishability as used in the Universal Composability framework.
Authentication is an indispensable part of Quantum Cryptography, which is an unconditionally secure key distribution technique based on the laws of nature. Without proper authentication, Quantum Cryptography is vulnerable to “man-in-the-middle” attacks. Therefore, to guarantee unconditional security of any Quantum Cryptographic protocols, the authentication used must also be unconditionally secure. The standard in Quantum Cryptography is to use theWegman-Carter authentication, which is unconditionally secure and is based on the idea of universal hashing. In this thesis, we first investigate properties of a Strongly Universal hash function family to facilitate understanding the properties of (classical) authentication used in Quantum Cryptography. Then, we study vulnerabilities of a recently proposed authentication protocol intended to rule out a "man-in-the-middle" attack on Quantum Cryptography. Here, we point out that the proposed authentication primitive is not secure when used in a generic Quantum Cryptographic protocol. Lastly, we estimate the lifetime of authentication using encrypted tags when the encryption key is partially known. Under simplifying assumptions, we derive that the lifetime is linearly dependent on the length of the authentication key. Experimental results that support the theoretical results are also presented.
We study the security of a specific authentication procedure of interest in the context of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). It works as follows: use a secret but fixed Strongly Universal2_22​ (SU2_22​) hash function and encrypt the output tag with a one-time pad (OTP). If the OTP is completely secret, the expected time for an adversary to create a tag for a chosen message is exponential in the tag length. If, however, the OTP is partially known in each authentication round, as is the case in practical QKD protocols, then the picture is different; the adversary's partial knowledge of the OTP in each authentication round gives partial information on the secret hash function, and this weakens the authentication in later rounds. The effect of this is that the lifetime of the system is linear in the length of the fixed key. This is supported by the composability theorem for QKD, that in this setting provides an upper bound to the security loss on the secret hash function, which is exponential in the number of authentication rounds. This needs to be taken into account when using the protocol, since the authentication gets weakened at each subsequent round and thus the QKD generated is key is not as strong as when the authentication is strong. Some countermeasures are discussed at the end of this paper.
Quantum Key Distribution is a secret distribution technique that requires an authenticated channel. This channel is usually created on top of an un-authenticated communication medium using unconditionally secure Message Authentication Codes (MAC) and an initial common secret. We examine the consequences of replacing this MAC algorithm by a cryptographic hash-based signature algorithm, like the Lamport algorithm. We show that provided one-way functions exist, the Lamport algorithm or its variants can be instantiated in a secure way in the Universally Composable sense, and can therefore be plugged into any QKD protocol with a composable security proof in a secure manner. This association, while relying on short-term computational hardness assumptions, results in an increase of the practical security of QKD and eases its deployment.
This work describes the using of Universal and Strongly Universal classes of hash functions for unconditionally secure message authentication in quantum cryptogra- phy. Different classes are compared and constructions of flexible e-Almost Strongly Universal classes are described. A new upper bound on the lifetime of a single hash function in one-time padded tags is introduced and optimisation on the final QKD key rate is shown for the QuAKE experiment, a B92 based QKD system. The public channel communication protocol of QuAKE is described, with special stress on the security issues