With the rise of quantum computing, traditional cryptography is facing serious threats. Secret sharing, as an important primitive of cryptography, is also affected. Because secret sharing is widely used in many fields, researchers have started to explore quantum secret sharing (QSS). QSS uses basic principles of quantum mechanics to provide strong security and can protect against both eavesdropping and malicious attacks. However, most existing QSS studies focus on specific situations and lack the flexibility needed for complex multiparty environments. In this work, we propose a general QSS framework that can be applied to different scenarios. We first design a basic [Formula: see text] QSS protocol, and then extend it to support multiparty communication and dynamic changes in participants. Our security analysis shows that the proposed method keeps strong security, uses fewer resources, and works independently without the need for a trusted third party (TP). This protocol offers a unified solution that can meet different application needs and provides a new approach to handling diverse QSS tasks more efficiently.
With the rise of quantum computing, traditional cryptography is facing serious threats. Secret sharing, as an important primitive of cryptography, is also affected. Because secret sharing is widely used in many fields, researchers have started to explore quantum secret sharing (QSS). QSS uses basic principles of quantum mechanics to provide strong security and can protect against both eavesdropping and malicious attacks. However, most existing QSS studies focus on specific situations and lack the flexibility needed for complex multiparty environments. In this work, we propose a general QSS framework that can be applied to different scenarios. We first design a basic [Formula: see text] QSS protocol, and then extend it to support multiparty communication and dynamic changes in participants. Our security analysis shows that the proposed method keeps strong security, uses fewer resources, and works independently without the need for a trusted third party (TP). This protocol offers a unified solution that can meet different application needs and provides a new approach to handling diverse QSS tasks more efficiently.
Quantum secret sharing (QSS), as a quantum extension of classical secret sharing, uses the basic principles of quantum mechanics to share information safely among multiple parties, providing a new paradigm for information security. As a key foundation for secure multiparty quantum communication and distributed quantum computing, QSS has attracted considerable attention since its emergence. Currently, research in this field includes both classical and quantum scenarios, and continuous progress has been made in both theoretical and experimental aspects. This paper first reviews the current development of QSS for classical information. In this regard, significant and parallel progress has been made in both discrete-variable QSS and continuous-variable QSS. The QSS protocols for sharing classical information, from entangled states to single photons and then to coherent light, have been continuously optimized to better utilize available resources and achieve more efficient implementation under current technological conditions. Meanwhile, round-robin, measurement-device-independent, and other protocols have been steadily improving the security of QSS. Next, one will focus on QSS scheme for quantum secrets, which begins with the symmetry of access structures and introduces basic (k, n) threshold protocols, dynamic schemes that support adaptive agent groups, and symmetric quantum information splitting through entanglement. It further introduces hierarchical quantum secret sharing schemes for asymmetric splitting of quantum information. Considering practical laboratory conditions of quantum states as resources, an overall discussion is conducted on quantum secret sharing with graph states. Afterwards, the design of a continuous-variable scheme for quantum secret sharing is outlined, and entanglement state sharing and quantum teleportation between multiple senders and receivers are introduced. Finally, this review discusses and outlines the future development directions of QSS, thereby inspiring readers to further study and explore the relevant subjects.
Classical secret sharing proposed by Shamir used classical computational power in classical cryptography to achieve secret key sharing, but with the advent of quantum systems, computational power can be overruled. To ensure a secure secret sharing scheme independent of computational power, a scheme independent of computational complexity is needed to achieve security. This paper will provide a protocol dependent on inherent secure nature of quantum cryptography (quantum no cloning theorem and quantum measurement rule). A secure multiparty quantum secret sharing scheme has been proposed to ensure that no one can eavesdrop or extract any share of the secret message via inherent security provided by quantum entanglement swapping and quantum teleportation. Entanglement swapping is a process that allows two non-interacting quantum systems to be entangled. Whereas, Quantum teleportation allows a party to send a qubit to another entangled party without sending the qubit over the channel. Moreover, in order to ensure security against possible active attacks, sender himself will generate and distribute EPR pairs to be used in the scheme. Result will be a secure multiparty QSS scheme which will be secure against internal and external eavesdropping, masquerading and brute-force attacks.
In quantum cryptography, quantum secret sharing (QSS) is a fundamental primitive. QSS can be used to create complex and secure multiparty quantum protocols. Existing QSS protocols are either at the (n,n) threshold 2 level or at the (t,n) threshold d level with a trusted player, where n denotes the number of players and t denotes the threshold number of players. Here, we propose a secure d-level QSS protocol for sharing a secret with efficient simulation. This protocol is more secure, flexible, and practical as compared to the existing QSS protocols: (n,n) threshold 2-level and (t,n) threshold d-level with a trusted player. Further, it does not disclose any information about the secret to players. Its security analysis shows that the intercept-resend, intercept, entangle-measure, forgery, collision and collusion attacks are not possible in this protocol.
Abstract With the rapid development of quantum computing, traditional encryption methods face growing security threats. Quantum Secret Sharing (QSS) has emerged as a promising solution, using quantum principles to improve communication security and prevent internal and external attacks. This study proposes a new (t, n) Threshold Quantum Secret Sharing (TQSS) protocol based on single-qubit unitary operations and Lagrange interpolation. The protocol allows secret reconstruction without third-party or dealer assistance and remains efficient even when some participants are absent. To address more complex real-world scenarios, we extend our previously proposed (t, n) TQSS protocol into a Conditional Dynamic TQSS (CDTQSS). This approach uses resource-based share splitting to allow new participants to join without requiring the dealer to redistribute information. However, the protocol is ‘conditional’ because existing participants must take on extra responsibility-they must assist in generating shares for new members and also participate in the secret reconstruction process together with them. The protocol maintains strong security, reduces resource consumption, and offers better flexibility, making it well-suited for practical and dynamic quantum communication needs.
The emerging quantum technology has highlighted the necessity for secure and efficient secret sharing in quantum networks. In this paper, we introduce a verifiable multiparty counterfactual quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocol, enhancing security and efficiency. This QSS protocol utilizes a low-depth quantum circuit to encrypt and decrypt information, which comprises a unitary operator constructed using a preshared secret key. To ensure the robustness and verifiability of the shared secret key, the protocol imposes constraints on the participants with the Chinese remainder theorem. The most significant advantage of our proposed QSS protocol is incorporating counterfactual communication, which considerably enhances the scheme’s security by enabling exchange-free information sharing among participants, thereby minimizing the risk of eavesdropping or intercept-and-resend attacks. Furthermore, we incorporate a weighted-threshold mechanism that provides flexibility, enabling diverse use cases to design security protocols for quantum networks. The security analysis of the counterfactual QSS protocol and its implementation on IBM Quantum computers reveals strong resilience to internal and external attacks, along with high efficiency and robustness, making it effective for quantum encryption in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era.
Abstract The fundamental concept of secret sharing involves dividing a secret into multiple parts and distributing them among several participants, who collectively safeguard the secret. When it comes to restoring the secret, cooperation among specific participants is necessary to reconstruct the original secret. Quantum secret sharing (QSS) employs quantum methods to address some limitations of classical secret sharing. Semi-QSS, an advancement of quantum methods, requires fewer quantum resources. Previous semi-quantum protocols demanded at least one participant with full quantum capabilities and randomly generated secret information. This paper introduces a protocol allowing three participants lacking complete quantum capabilities to share secret information of specific bits with the assistance of a third party possessing complete quantum capabilities. Unlike previous approaches, this protocol does not require participants to possess full quantum capabilities and shares secret information of specific bits. These characteristics make the protocol more practical and flexible for real-world applications.