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Optica

Robust countermeasure against detector control attack in a practical quantum key distribution system: reply

De‐Yong He, Yong-Jun Qian, Shuang Wang, Wei Chen, Zhen−Qiang Yin, Guang‐Can Guo, Zheng‐Fu Han

Published Sep 22, 2020• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We reply to the comment on our robust countermeasure against the detector control attack [ Optica 6 , 1178 ( 2019 ) OPTIC8 2334-2536 10.1364/OPTICA.6.001178 ] and explain that the concerns arising from an over-interpretation of our countermeasure are one-sided and untenable.
DOI
10.1364/optica.403917

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The physical imperfections of quantum key distribution systems compromise their information-theoretic security. By exploiting the imperfections on the detection unit, an eavesdropper can launch various detector-control attacks to steal the secret key. Recently, in Optica 6 , 1178 ( 2019 ) OPTIC8 2334-2536 10.1364/OPTICA.6.001178 entitled “Robust countermeasure against detector control attack in a practical quantum key distribution system,” Qian et al. proposed a countermeasure using variable attenuators in the detection unit that was claimed to be effective against detector-control attacks with or without blinding light. We comment on this paper, disputing this countermeasure by showing that their assumptions for proving this effectiveness are unrealistic.
We demonstrate a practical countermeasure against a well-known class of attacks on quantum key distribution (QKD) systems that exploit detection efficiency mismatch, where the receiver's detectors do not exhibit identical responses to incoming photons across all degrees of freedom. This class of quantum hacking strategies is broad and significantly includes the time-shift attack, which targets an arrival-time-dependent side channel at the receiver. The four-state countermeasure, previously only proven to be secure in theory, is implemented here on a GHz-clocked prototype QKD system and evaluated for its security and performance. We show that its presence enables almost complete recovery of the system's ideal secret key rate. Our results provide strong justification for adopting this countermeasure as a standard component in future scalable and practical QKD systems.
In real-life implementations of quantum key distribution (QKD), the physical systems with unwanted imperfections would be exploited by an eavesdropper. Based on imperfections in the detectors, detector control attacks have been successfully launched on several QKD systems, and attracted widespread concerns. Here, we propose a robust countermeasure against these attacks just by introducing a variable attenuator in front of the detector. This countermeasure is not only effective against the attacks with blinding light, but also robust against the attacks without blinding light which are more concealed and threatening. Different from previous technical improvements, the single photon detector in our countermeasure model is treated as a blackbox, and the eavesdropper can be detected by statistics of the detection and error rates of the QKD system. Besides theoretical proof, the countermeasure is also supported by an experimental demonstration. Our countermeasure is general in sense that it is independent of the technical details of the detector, and can be easily applied to the existing QKD systems.