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International Journal of Theoretical Physics

Quantum Key Distribution Scheme with Key Recycling in Integrated Optical Network

Yuguang Xu, Liuyi Chen, Hongfeng Zhu

Published May 13, 2023• 5 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1007/s10773-023-05376-y

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Quantum-key-distribution (QKD) networks can provide absolutely secure keys for the entire communication system in theory. At present, the key-distribution rate is relatively low, and the key-distribution rate decreases exponentially as the distribution distance increases. The trusted-relay scheme commonly used in existing QKD networks achieves the purpose of extending the security distance by consuming additional keys. Since the channel is unreliable, the key-relay process will accumulate system errors to a certain extent, increasing the probability of key-relay failure. In some high-bit-error-rate network scenarios such as wireless networks and disaster environments, the channel-error rate is as high as 30–50%. And in these scenarios, there are usually a large number of confidential messages that need to be delivered. However, the key-management mechanism of the current QKD system does not consider the scenario of key-relay failure. If the key is not successfully relayed, all the keys participating in the relay process will be destroyed, including the key that has been successfully relayed before. This situation causes the key to be wasted and reduces the encryption capability of the system. In this paper, we proposed the quantum-key-recycling (QKR) mechanism to increase the number of keys available in the network and introduced a secure service grading mechanism to properly reuse the recycled keys. The QKR mechanism can be regarded as a key-management mechanism acting on the point-to-point QKD system, and the mechanism is designed for a classical channel to reuse the key resources. A post-processing method for recycled keys is proposed to improve the security of the keys. Simulation results show that the QKD network using the key-recycling strategy is about 20% higher in key-utilization rate than the traditional QKD network without the QKR mechanism, and about 10% higher in-service security coverage.

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Increasing incidents of cyber attacks and evolution of quantum computing poses challenges to secure existing information and communication technologies infrastructure. In recent years, quantum key distribution (QKD) is being extensively researched, and is widely accepted as a promising technology to realize secure networks. Optical fiber networks carry a huge amount of information, and are widely deployed around the world in the backbone terrestrial, submarine, metro, and access networks. Thus, instead of using separate dark fibers for quantum communication, integration of QKD with the existing classical optical networks has been proposed as a cost-efficient solution, however, this integration introduces new research challenges. In this paper, we do a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art QKD secured optical networks, which is going to shape communication networks in the coming decades. We elucidate the methods and protocols used in QKD secured optical networks, and describe the process of key establishment. Various methods proposed in the literature to address the networking challenges in QKD secured optical networks, specifically, routing, wavelength and time-slot allocation (RWTA), resiliency, trusted repeater node (TRN) placement, QKD for multicast service, and quantum key recycling are described and compared in detail. This survey begins with the introduction to QKD and its advantages over conventional encryption methods. Thereafter, an overview of QKD is given including quantum bits, basic QKD system, QKD schemes and protocol families along with the detailed description of QKD process based on the Bennett and Brassard-84 (BB84) protocol as it is the most widely used QKD protocol in the literature. QKD system are also prone to some specific types of attacks, hence, we describe the types of quantum hacking attacks on the QKD system along with the methods used to prevent them. Subsequently, the process of point-to-point mechanism of QKD over an optical fiber link is described in detail using the BB84 protocol. Different architectures of QKD secured optical networks are described next. Finally, major findings from this comprehensive survey are summarized with highlighting open issues and challenges in QKD secured optical networks.

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Quantum-key-distribution (QKD) networks can provide absolutely secure keys for the entire communication system in theory. At present, the key-distribution rate is relatively low, and the key-distribution rate decreases exponentially as the distribution distance increases. The trusted-relay scheme commonly used in existing QKD networks achieves the purpose of extending the security distance by consuming additional keys. Since the channel is unreliable, the key-relay process will accumulate system errors to a certain extent, increasing the probability of key-relay failure. In some high-bit-error-rate network scenarios such as wireless networks and disaster environments, the channel-error rate is as high as 30–50%. And in these scenarios, there are usually a large number of confidential messages that need to be delivered. However, the key-management mechanism of the current QKD system does not consider the scenario of key-relay failure. If the key is not successfully relayed, all the keys participating in the relay process will be destroyed, including the key that has been successfully relayed before. This situation causes the key to be wasted and reduces the encryption capability of the system. In this paper, we proposed the quantum-key-recycling (QKR) mechanism to increase the number of keys available in the network and introduced a secure service grading mechanism to properly reuse the recycled keys. The QKR mechanism can be regarded as a key-management mechanism acting on the point-to-point QKD system, and the mechanism is designed for a classical channel to reuse the key resources. A post-processing method for recycled keys is proposed to improve the security of the keys. Simulation results show that the QKD network using the key-recycling strategy is about 20% higher in key-utilization rate than the traditional QKD network without the QKR mechanism, and about 10% higher in-service security coverage.
Integrating quantum key distribution (QKD) into the optical network through wavelength division multiplex (WDM) is promising for establishing large-scale QKD networks. However, the existing wavelength assignment schemes for WDM-QKD network all require to reserve a dedicate waveband for quantum signals, which influences the provisioning of data services, especially when the resource is tight. In this article, considering the quantum key pool (QKP) technology in the current QKD network, we propose a flexible key-size-driven wavelength assignment (KSD-WA) scheme to recycle the wavelength fragment to transmit quantum signals. Additionally, considering the noise impacts and the limited reconfiguration operations, we propose a heuristic algorithm to optimize the fragment selection with the objective of maximizing the secure key rate in the dynamic scenario. We also design a deep reinforcement learning (DeepRL) based algorithm to automatically learn the optimization policy under different environments. The simulation results verify that comparing with the conventional fixed-band (FB) scheme, the KSD-WA scheme assisted by the proposed optimization algorithms can provide adequate keys for encryption without affecting the provisioning of coexisting data services, which improves the compatibility of QKD with the real-life optical networks.
Increasing incidents of cyber attacks and evolution of quantum computing poses challenges to secure existing information and communication technologies infrastructure. In recent years, quantum key distribution (QKD) is being extensively researched, and is widely accepted as a promising technology to realize secure networks. Optical fiber networks carry a huge amount of information, and are widely deployed around the world in the backbone terrestrial, submarine, metro, and access networks. Thus, instead of using separate dark fibers for quantum communication, integration of QKD with the existing classical optical networks has been proposed as a cost-efficient solution, however, this integration introduces new research challenges. In this paper, we do a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art QKD secured optical networks, which is going to shape communication networks in the coming decades. We elucidate the methods and protocols used in QKD secured optical networks, and describe the process of key establishment. Various methods proposed in the literature to address the networking challenges in QKD secured optical networks, specifically, routing, wavelength and time-slot allocation (RWTA), resiliency, trusted repeater node (TRN) placement, QKD for multicast service, and quantum key recycling are described and compared in detail. This survey begins with the introduction to QKD and its advantages over conventional encryption methods. Thereafter, an overview of QKD is given including quantum bits, basic QKD system, QKD schemes and protocol families along with the detailed description of QKD process based on the Bennett and Brassard-84 (BB84) protocol as it is the most widely used QKD protocol in the literature. QKD system are also prone to some specific types of attacks, hence, we describe the types of quantum hacking attacks on the QKD system along with the methods used to prevent them. Subsequently, the process of point-to-point mechanism of QKD over an optical fiber link is described in detail using the BB84 protocol. Different architectures of QKD secured optical networks are described next. Finally, major findings from this comprehensive survey are summarized with highlighting open issues and challenges in QKD secured optical networks.