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IEEE Transactions on Communications

An Information-Theoretic Secure Group Authentication Scheme for Quantum Key Distribution Networks

Yi Luo, Haokun Mao, Qiong Li, Nan Chen

Published May 29, 2023• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Information-theoretic secure (ITS) authentication is an essential part of a quantum key distribution (QKD) system. In the QKD network, the authentication scheme based on the ITS QKD keys pre-shared by the QKD system. However, such a scheme is subject to the limitation that consumes a significant amount of authentication keys when the scale and communication requirements of QKD networks grow. To address the issue, we propose an ITS group authentication scheme for QKD networks that consumes considerably fewer keys. In our scheme, multiple QKD network nodes collaborate and complete the authentication as a group. Compared to the pre-shared keys authentication scheme, our scheme reduces the complexity of authentication key consumption from$O\left ({N^{2}d }\right) $to$O\left ({N }\right) $, where$N $is the number of nodes and$d $is the average path length of the network topology. The security of the proposed scheme is analyzed in detail and simulation experiments are conducted to demonstrate our scheme’s effectiveness for varying networks scales and communication requirements.

DOI
10.1109/tcomm.2023.3280561

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Information-theoretic secure (ITS) authentication is an essential part of a quantum key distribution (QKD) system. In the QKD network, the authentication scheme based on the ITS QKD keys pre-shared by the QKD system. However, such a scheme is subject to the limitation that consumes a significant amount of authentication keys when the scale and communication requirements of QKD networks grow. To address the issue, we propose an ITS group authentication scheme for QKD networks that consumes considerably fewer keys. In our scheme, multiple QKD network nodes collaborate and complete the authentication as a group. Compared to the pre-shared keys authentication scheme, our scheme reduces the complexity of authentication key consumption fromO(N2d)O\left ({N^{2}d }\right) O(N2d)toO(N)O\left ({N }\right) O(N), whereNN Nis the number of nodes anddd dis the average path length of the network topology. The security of the proposed scheme is analyzed in detail and simulation experiments are conducted to demonstrate our scheme’s effectiveness for varying networks scales and communication requirements.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) networks are expected to enable information-theoretical secure (ITS) communication over a large-scale network. Most research on relay-based QKD networks assumes all relays or nodes are completely trustworthy. However, this assumption is unreasonable because the malicious behavior of even a single node can undermine the security of the entire network. Currently, there is no method to directly distinguish between honest nodes and malicious nodes. Moreover, the status of nodes as honest or malicious can be dynamic. Therefore, a solution is needed that can withstand a certain proportion of malicious nodes in QKD networks. We propose a novel paradigm, inspired by distributed systems, to address the active and passive attacks by collaborating with malicious nodes in QKD networks. First, regarding security, we propose the ITS distributed authentication scheme, which additionally ensures two crucial security properties to QKD networks: identity unforgeability and non-repudiation. Second, concerning correctness, we propose an ITS fault-tolerant consensus scheme based on our ITS distributed authentication to ensure global consistency. This enables participating nodes to collaborate correctly and complete end-to-end key distribution within a constant number of communication rounds. Through our simulation, we have shown that our scheme exhibits a significantly lower growth trend in key consumption compared to the original end-to-end pre-shared keys scheme. For instance, in larger networks, such as when the number of nodes is 80, our scheme’s key consumption is only 13.1% of the pre-shared keys scheme.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols require Information-Theoretically Secure (ITS) authentication of the classical channel to preserve the unconditional security of the distilled key. Standard ITS schemes are based on one-time keys: once a key is used to authenticate a message, it must be discarded. Since QKD requires mutual authentication, two independent one-time keys are typically consumed per round, imposing a non-trivial overhead on the net secure key rate. In this work, we present the authentication-with-response scheme, a novel ITS authentication scheme based on ε\varepsilonε-Almost Strongly Universal2_22​ (ε\varepsilonε-ASU2_22​) functions, whose IT security can be established in the Universal Composability (UC) framework. The scheme achieves mutual authentication consuming a single one-time key per QKD round, halving key consumption compared to the state-of-the-art.
The paper addresses entity authentication in quantum key distribution (QKD) systems as a decisive condition of their practical security. It is shown that the information-theoretic security of quantum key agreement does not eliminate the need to authenticate the communicating parties: an unauthenticated classical channel leaves the system exposed to the man-in-the-middle attack, since the eavesdropper can run independent QKD instances with each party and reconcile two keys under full control. Existing authentication methods are analysed and classified by the underlying cryptographic primitive: symmetric schemes based on Wegman–Carter universal hashing, pre-shared and fixed keys, public-key infrastructure, two-way authentication, quantum entity/identity authentication, and zero-knowledge proofs. For each class the operating principle, advantages and limitations are determined, with emphasis on key management, scalability and trust distribution. It is established that symmetric and quantum-layer methods rely on pre-shared secrets with a quadratic growth of key material, public-key infrastructure introduces a single trust bottleneck and quantum-vulnerable primitives, while existing zero-knowledge authentication schemes are quantum and bound to the physical layer or solve network properties other than identity. A comparative analysis reveals an unresolved scientific gap: the absence of a scalable entity-authentication method that simultaneously provides non-disclosure of the secret, quantum resistance, sub-quadratic scalability and minimisation of trust assumptions. On this basis, a prospective research direction is substantiated – the construction of entity-authentication methods based on post-quantum zero-knowledge proofs operating over the classical control plane of scalable QKD networks. The requirements for such a method are formulated, and its compatibility with formal QKD security proofs is discussed.
Digital signatures are widely used for providing security of communications. At the same time, the security of currently deployed digital signature protocols is based on unproven computational assumptions. An efficient way to ensure an unconditional (information-theoretic) security of communication is to use quantum key distribution (QKD), whose security is based on laws of quantum mechanics. In this work we develop an unconditionally secure signature scheme that guarantees authenticity and transferability of arbitrary length messages in a QKD network. In the proposed setup, the QKD network consists of two subnetworks: (i) an internal network that includes the signer and with limitation on the number of malicious nodes and (ii) an external network that has no assumptions on the number of malicious nodes. A consequence of the absence of the trust assumption in the external subnetwork is the necessity of assistance from internal subnetwork recipients for the verification of message-signature pairs by external subnetwork recipients. We provide a comprehensive security analysis of the developed scheme, perform an optimization of the scheme parameters with respect to the secret key consumption, and demonstrate that the developed scheme is compatible with the capabilities of currently available QKD devices.
Abstract Entity authentication is crucial for ensuring secure quantum communication as it helps confirm the identity of participants before transmitting any confidential information. We propose a practical entity authentication protocol for quantum key distribution (QKD) network systems that utilizes authentication qubits. In this protocol, authentication qubits that are encoded with pre-shared information are generated and exchanged to verify the legitimacy of each entity. By using the authentication qubit, participants can identify each other with enhanced security level through the quantum channel. The proposed protocol can be easily integrated with existing QKD systems without the need for additional hardware. In this study, we demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed scheme using a 1xN QKD network system and verified its stable operation over a deployed fiber network. Additionally, a security analysis of the proposed entity authentication protocol and architecture is provided.
Secure communication in large-scale quantum key distribution (QKD) networks relies on the key management layer to establish a key between any two nodes in the network. For non-adjacent nodes key forwarding is applied and secure keys are one-time pad encrypted with key material obtained from individual QKD links on a hop-by-hop basis from the initiator to the receiver. Notably, in a distributed setting, this requires that the nodes along the path be fully trusted, since they are given plaintext access to the secret during re-encryption.In this work, we propose a security model for the key forwarding process that provides confidentiality of the key with respect to all nodes that are not on the selected path from initiator to receiver. The model also captures the authenticity of the forwarded key in a sense that the key at the receiver is the same as the one sent by the initiator. Furthermore, in case the authenticity check fails, the receiver can identify the link that violated the authenticity guarantees by accident or on purpose. Finally, we provide a protocol for secure authentic key forwarding based on unconditionally hiding commitment schemes and unforgeable signature schemes that achieves confidentiality of the transmitted keys in an information theoretic sense of security whereas authenticity requires computationally secure primitives.