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IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering

QKD Key Provisioning With Multi-Level Pool Slicing for End-to-End Security Services in Optical Networks

Qingcheng Zhu, Xiaosong Yu, Yongli Zhao, Avishek Nag, Jie Zhang

Published Dec 4, 2023• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides future-proofed security based on the quantum physics. The end-to-end security services in the fields such as finance, government, and military are mainly carried by optical networks. Limited by technical and economical obstacles of QKD deployment, partially-QKD-deployed optical networks (pQKD-ONs) are much more practical. Key pooling is a technique to decouple keys from the underlying infrastructure for timely key provisioning. However, traditional QKD key provisioning (QKPR) methods are specific to QKD-deployed nodes. In this paper, we propose the pQKD-ON architecture and design the multi-level key pool slicing scheme for key management in pQKD-ONs. Then, we propose a general auxiliary-graph-based QKPR algorithm for key supply in pQKD-ONs. Based on the algorithm, we design four dynamic QKPR policies by adjusting edge weights of the auxiliary graphs including Quantum-Key-Pool-First (QKP-First), Key-Pool-Slice-First (KPS-First), Key-Availability-First (KA-First), and Quantum-Key-Pool-All (QKP-All) policies. We evaluate the performances of the QKPR policies in terms of key consumption, security level, and QKPR latency under two network topologies. Simulation results show that the KA-First policy can achieve 9.9% lower key consumption ratio than the KPS-First policy; the KPS-First policy sacrifices the security level but can achieve lower QKPR latency than the QKP-First and QKP-All policies.

DOI
10.1109/tnse.2023.3338734

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Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides future-proofed security based on the quantum physics. The end-to-end security services in the fields such as finance, government, and military are mainly carried by optical networks. Limited by technical and economical obstacles of QKD deployment, partially-QKD-deployed optical networks (pQKD-ONs) are much more practical. Key pooling is a technique to decouple keys from the underlying infrastructure for timely key provisioning. However, traditional QKD key provisioning (QKPR) methods are specific to QKD-deployed nodes. In this paper, we propose the pQKD-ON architecture and design the multi-level key pool slicing scheme for key management in pQKD-ONs. Then, we propose a general auxiliary-graph-based QKPR algorithm for key supply in pQKD-ONs. Based on the algorithm, we design four dynamic QKPR policies by adjusting edge weights of the auxiliary graphs including Quantum-Key-Pool-First (QKP-First), Key-Pool-Slice-First (KPS-First), Key-Availability-First (KA-First), and Quantum-Key-Pool-All (QKP-All) policies. We evaluate the performances of the QKPR policies in terms of key consumption, security level, and QKPR latency under two network topologies. Simulation results show that the KA-First policy can achieve 9.9% lower key consumption ratio than the KPS-First policy; the KPS-First policy sacrifices the security level but can achieve lower QKPR latency than the QKP-First and QKP-All policies.
With its information-theoretic security, quantum-key-distribution-enabled optical networks (QKD-ON) have become a promising candidate for future optical networks. The concept of quantum key pool (QKP) was introduced to offer an effective strategy for storing quantum keys. However, with the loss on its theoretical security due to storing these keys, balancing the storage of quantum keys and the security requirements of QKD-ONs poses a major challenge in their practical deployments. Hence, in this paper a concept of quasi-real-time key provisioning (QRT-KP) is introduced to address the tradeoff between quantum key storage and the degree of security. To satisfy the practical deployment of QRT-KP and the requirement of high-traffic flow, we propose a multi-path based QRT-KP (MP-QRT-KP) algorithm. Simulation results show that the MP-QRT-KP effectively enhances the performance of QKD-ONs in different scenarios, and it turns out that the algorithm performs better than single-path based QRT-KP (SP-QRT-KP) in terms of the success probability of key-allocation requests and key-resources utilization.
Quantum cryptography (QC) is currently under investigation to build highly secure optical communication networks. QC requires distribution of quantum keys (also called "secret" keys) on separate wavelength channels than those used to transmit the encrypted data. Hence, we propose a quantum-secured passive optical network (QS-PON) that supports both i) the traditional wavelength channels for secured data transmission, and ii) a quantum key distribution network (QKDN) running on separate dedicated wavelengths. The QKDN generates and stores secret keys that are then assigned to users' demands served on traditional PON channels. To generate secret keys, quantum transmitters at the optical network units (ONUs) exchange qubits with a quantum receiver at the optical line terminal (OLT). Then, the generated secret keys are stored in quantum key pools (QKPs) installed at both OLT and the ONUs and assigned to users' demands. Point-to-multipoint QKD systems have been experimentally demonstrated over various forms of quantum access networks (QANs), showing that an efficient mechanism to generate and assign quantum keys based on traffic requests is a critical component of QANs. In this study, we present a new QS-PON architecture, and we propose a dynamic secret-key provisioning (DSKP) algorithm that effectively generates and assigns secret keys from users' demands. Our proposed DSKP algorithm features two phases, the lowest-first secret-key generation (LF-SKG) phase and the hierarchical-clustering secret-key consumption (HC-SKC) phase. In this study, we also provide an analytical model that describes how secret keys are generated and consumed in QKPs. In our illustrative numerical evaluation, we compare our algorithm for secret-key provisioning with a baseline IPACT-based solution in terms of service-rejection ratio, time-slot utilization, and guard- and relay-time saving. Results show that DSKP reduces service-rejection ratio and guard- and relay-time of about 16% and 39.54%, respectively.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) networks are proposed as a solution to ensure information-theoretic security for symmetric key exchange in post-quantum networks. Key generation is limited and variable, hence Quantum Key Pools (QKPs) have been proposed to allow applications a quicker access to quantum keys for secure data exchange. Nevertheless, On-Demand (OD) key relaying can still entail a delay too large for some applications. Therefore, the concept of key provisioning has been proposed to expedite key supply whenever necessary, resulting in Virtual QKPs for non-adjacent QKD nodes. After the implementation of a key pre-provisioning strategy inspired by an approach proposed by other authors, some novel variants are proposed that aim to decrease demand blocking due to the lack of keys, without significantly increasing the delay for key supply. In this work, an experimental study is conducted, where different settings are considered for the simulation parameters (including the QKP capacity). We conclude that the different pre-provisioning strategies allow for a reduction in the blocking probability (calculated for demands and for data) and in the delay, when compared to an OD strategy.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is experiencing a rapid increase of interest due to its security advantages in the face of quantum computers. However, typical QKD deployments are point-to-point and limited in terms of distance, which significantly restricts their utilization for end-user applications. To overcome these restrictions, trusted relays are adopted as intermediate nodes to allow the transition to QKD networks (QKDNs), where one of the hallmarks is the key management system. In this work, we investigate different key allocation strategies as a method to enhance the performance of key management systems in QKDN from the perspective of key allocation success rate and key delivery delay. We first describe an upgrade model from classical to QKDN at three distinct network layers—quantum, key management, and service. Then, we propose a novel, to our knowledge, key allocation strategy leveraging the benefits of key storage and relaying as a solution to improve the QKDN performance. To achieve this, our method makes use of end-to-end virtual quantum key pools (VQKPs) implemented between non-adjacent nodes requesting key material. We introduce static and dynamic upper and lower threshold limits at the VQKP level, with the dynamic thresholds adapted according to application demand, to control the key distribution in the network and fill the pools ahead of end-user requests. We demonstrate through simulations that the introduction of thresholds achieves performance enhancement and explain the trade-off between the key allocation success rate and key delivery delay evaluation metrics in comparison with different on-demand key allocation strategies.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a symmetric key exchange mechanism designed to enhance the security of current communication systems. Although QKD provides unconditional security, it also comes with deployment challenges. One challenge is the distance limitation between the transmitter and receiver, which restricts the large-scale adoption of QKD. To overcome this, trusted relays are used as intermediate nodes, allowing QKD to evolve from distance-limited point-to-point connections to unlimited QKD networks (QKDN). With an increasing deployment of QKD and a growing number of applications requesting keys, quality of service (QoS) constraints must be set for efficient key resource management to alleviate the risk of rejecting application requests. In this work, we integrate key delivery delay and maximum requested key size as QoS constraints in a novel key allocation algorithm built on three QKDN layers – quantum, key management and service. Moreover, we design key relaying using quantum key pools and virtual quantum key pools as storage mechanisms. We use static and dynamic weights for relay path computation and evaluate their impact on the proposed key allocation strategies with QoS constraints and find that static weights show a good overall performance for QKDN, while performance with dynamic weights varies based on historical key consumption data.