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Journal of Optical Communications and Networking

Generalized quantum-assisted digital signature service in an SDN-controlled quantum-integrated optical network

Alessio Giorgetti, Nicola Andriolli, Marco Ferrari, Elisabetta Storelli, Gennaro Davide Paduanelli, Antonino Cacicia, Rudi Paolo Paganelli, Alberto Tarable, Emilio Paolini, Giada Sajeva, Marco Brunero, Alessandro Gagliano, Paolo Martelli, Pietro Noviello, Giovanni Schmid, Alberto Gatto

Published Nov 18, 2024• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Digital signature (DS) is an essential application of cryptography, used to certify the provenance of a message and its authenticity, guaranteeing the non-repudiation, unforgeability, and transferability of messages. However, the forthcoming advent of quantum computation poses a significant threat to classical signature schemes. A possible solution could be the introduction of novel DS schemes based on the fundamental laws of quantum physics. Recently, several quantum DS (QDS) protocols have been proposed, even relying on the exploitation of off-the-shelf quantum key distribution (QKD) solutions. However, their efficiency and large signature size, uncorrelated to the size of the message to sign, represent the main limitation in their employment in a practical scenario. A trade-off solution could be a quantum-assisted DS (QADS), where the QKD technology is exploited together with classical cryptographic functions to achieve a stronger DS scheme, more resistant even to quantum attacks. We propose a generalized quantum-assisted digital signature (G-QADS) protocol based on a hybrid system, composed by the standard Wegman-Carter Message Authentication Code (WG-MAC) together with symmetric QKD keys, to enhance the security of the DS, allowing messages with arbitrary lengths to be signed while maintaining a suitable DS length. In this work, the G-QADS process is proposed for a three-party configuration (one signer and two verifiers), where the third participant is involved in the procedure just in the case of contention between the other two parties. The G-QADS protocol is then experimentally tested to prove its resilience to forging and non-repudiation attacks, demonstrating its capability in securing the message signature (with a success probability of the attacks <10 −18 ). The performance is experimentally tested exploiting QKD prototypes based on standard BB84 protocol with decoy states and polarization encoding, in a software-defined network (SDN) infrastructure supervised by a single SDN controller, which provides the management of both classical and quantum communication channels. The proposed solution could push the practical exploitation of QKD into a new application domain, leading to a more pervasive integration of quantum technology in realistic scenarios.

DOI
10.1364/jocn.534089

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Digital signature (DS) is an essential application of cryptography, used to certify the provenance of a message and its authenticity, guaranteeing the non-repudiation, unforgeability, and transferability of messages. However, the forthcoming advent of quantum computation poses a significant threat to classical signature schemes. A possible solution could be the introduction of novel DS schemes based on the fundamental laws of quantum physics. Recently, several quantum DS (QDS) protocols have been proposed, even relying on the exploitation of off-the-shelf quantum key distribution (QKD) solutions. However, their efficiency and large signature size, uncorrelated to the size of the message to sign, represent the main limitation in their employment in a practical scenario. A trade-off solution could be a quantum-assisted DS (QADS), where the QKD technology is exploited together with classical cryptographic functions to achieve a stronger DS scheme, more resistant even to quantum attacks. We propose a generalized quantum-assisted digital signature (G-QADS) protocol based on a hybrid system, composed by the standard Wegman-Carter Message Authentication Code (WG-MAC) together with symmetric QKD keys, to enhance the security of the DS, allowing messages with arbitrary lengths to be signed while maintaining a suitable DS length. In this work, the G-QADS process is proposed for a three-party configuration (one signer and two verifiers), where the third participant is involved in the procedure just in the case of contention between the other two parties. The G-QADS protocol is then experimentally tested to prove its resilience to forging and non-repudiation attacks, demonstrating its capability in securing the message signature (with a success probability of the attacks <10 −18 ). The performance is experimentally tested exploiting QKD prototypes based on standard BB84 protocol with decoy states and polarization encoding, in a software-defined network (SDN) infrastructure supervised by a single SDN controller, which provides the management of both classical and quantum communication channels. The proposed solution could push the practical exploitation of QKD into a new application domain, leading to a more pervasive integration of quantum technology in realistic scenarios.
One of the most important applications of cryptography is digital signature (DS), which aims to certify the provenance of a message as well as its authenticity, ensuring the nonrepudiation, unforgeability, and transferability of messages. However, the forthcoming advent of quantum computers poses a significant threat to classical signature schemes. In this work, an improved version of a novel quantum-assisted digital signature (QADS) solution will be presented, in which quantum keys generated by quantum key distribution (QKD) are used together with standard classical cryptographic functions to provide a hybrid system that integrates quantum and classical cryptography. The quantum keys enhance the security of the DS, allowing to sign messages with arbitrary lengths while maintaining a suitable DS length. The proposed solution could push the practical exploitation of QKD in a new application domain, leading to a more pervasive integration of quantum technology in realistic scenarios.
Currently used digital signatures based on asymmetric cryptography will be vulnerable to quantum computers running Shor's algorithm. In this work, we propose a new quantum-assisted digital signature protocol based on symmetric keys generated by QKD, that allows signing and verifying messages in a simple way implementing an integration of currently available classical and quantum technologies. The protocol is described for a three-user scenario composed of one sender and two receivers. In contrast to previous schemes, it is independent of the message length. The security of the protocol has been analyzed, as well as its integrity, authenticity and non-repudiation properties.
With the quantum computational paradigm rapidly developing across the world, new vulnerabilities on currently deployed cryptography protocols are to be taken in consideration. A possible answer to said vulnerabilities is using quantum technologies on cryptography. For a quantum-assisted cryptography protocol, key pairs can be generated via quantum state measurements. This protocol is known as quantum key distribution, of extended use for providing security against any algorithm-based attack to the keys. Ensured the key protection against eavesdroppers, a QKD-assisted protocol can focus its security analysis on party behaviour. Depending on the protocol rules and steps to follow, users can attempt attacks on it with the purpose of causing disagreement or misunderstanding between parties. In this work, we present a simulation environment for a hybrid, quantum-assisted digital signature (QDS) protocol. The configurations available for the simulated network as well as the digital signature protocol make it possible to design specific communication scenarios, such as attacks on the message integrity, forging and repudiation attempts or noisy communication across the quantum channels.
This paper introduces Generalized Quantum-assisted Digital Signature (GQaDS), an improved version of a recently proposed scheme whose information theoretic security is inherited by adopting QKD keys for digital signature purposes. Its security against forging is computed considering a trial-and-error approach taken by the malicious forger and GQaDS parameters are optimized via an analytical approach balancing between forgery and repudiation probabilities. The hash functions of the previous implementation are replaced with Carter-Wegman Message Authentication Codes (MACs), strengthening the scheme security and reducing the signature length. For particular scenarios where the second verifier has a safe reputation, a simplified version of GQaDS, namely deterministic GQaDS, can further reduce the required signature length, keeping the desired security strength.
Abstract Quantum digital signature (QDS) provides information-theoretic security and enables fundamental cryptographic functionalities, including integrity, non-repudiation, and data origin authentication. Existing QDS implementations, however, assign fixed user roles - signer, authenticator, and verifier - which limits their applicability in practical quantum networks, where role flexibility is essential. In this work, we implement a QDS protocol on a three-user fiber-optic quantum network in which any participant can dynamically assume the role of signer. Every node uses an identical design for encoding and decoding time-bin quantum states, enabling flexible signer assignment without hardware reconfiguration. We evaluate the signature rate and secret key rate for all possible signer configurations and show that valid signatures can be generated even in regimes where quantum key distribution (QKD) fails to produce a secret key. This result highlights a fundamental practical advantage of QDS over QKD at small classical post-processing block sizes, where key distillation is not achievable. Our results establish the feasibility of reconfigurable quantum signature networks and represent an important step toward scalable and robust quantum communication infrastructures.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a pioneering development in secure communication, an information-theoretic secure communications protocol that is founded on quantum mechanics. However, the effectiveness of such systems which safeguard the classical communication mediums against interception and impersonation depends on the strength of the authentication mechanisms that are used in the QKD systems. The proposed study is Hybrid Quantum Authentication Framework that is based on a combination of Wegman-Carter authentication, Quantum Digital Signature (QDS), and Post-quantum Cryptography (PQC) to counter new threats of Man-in-the-Middle (MITM), replay, and key exhaustion attacks. Based on the Quantum Encryption Dataset retrieved on the Kaggle platform, the framework was experimentally tested following the dataset augmentation to incorporate the authentication parameters and simulated attack labels. The results of the experiment prove that the hybrid model proposed can attain an authentication accuracy of 98.6%, which is significantly higher than that of standalone methods, MISM and replay attack detection rates of 99 and 98, respectively. The architecture lowers the key consumption by more than 40 percent, keeps the latency at 1.28 ms and the throughput at 92 percent, proving the scalability and computational efficiency of the architecture. Comparable performance and scalability studies also indicate that the model remains highly reliable as the size of the network increases with little growth in the latency. Generally, the suggested hybrid solution is robust, flexible and effective authentication of QKD networks and a viable solution in the next-generation quantum-safe communications infrastructure that can withstand classical and quantum attackers.