Physical Review A

Security analysis against the Trojan horse attack on practical polarization-encoding quantum key distribution systems

Tingting Luo, Qiang Liu, Xiaoran Sun, Chunfeng Huang, Ye Chen, Zhenrong Zhang, Kejin Wei

Published Apr 3, 2024• 11 citations

Abstract

Quantum key distribution (QKD), which theoretically provides unconditional secure communication, has developed rapidly in the past decades. However, the practical QKD systems still have vulnerabilities due to device imperfections. Polarization-encoding systems are one of the most important branches in the field of QKD. To date, a variety of polarization-encoding schemes have been proposed to meet the requirements of high speed and robust modulation, but the security analysis of these schemes is often ignored. In this paper, we experimentally and theoretically evaluated the security of three typical polarization encoders against the Trojan horse attack (THA), which is recognized as one of the critical quantum attacks. We built a system to implement the THA and collected the reflection from QKD configuration with different encoders. According to the experimental results, we further analyzed the secure key rate and the resistance against THAs of the system while BB84 or measurement-device-independent QKD was applied. Our paper plays an important guiding role in the design of polarization encoders and the construction of secure QKD systems with realistic devices.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.109.042608

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