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IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)

Quantum PUF Based Secret Key Generation and Secure Storage with Side Information

Kumar Nilesh, Christian Deppe, Holger Boche

Published Jun 22, 2025• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This work introduces a Quantum PUF (QPUF)-based approach to enhance cryptographic key generation and secure storage. An information-theoretic model is developed to analyze trade-offs between key generation, secure storage, and privacy leakage under unconditional and conditional secrecy constraints. Additionally, the use of shared private keys is explored to achieve zero privacy leakage. The results extend classical and classical-quantum findings to the fully quantum regime, to provide a pathway toward robust authentication and data security and offering a foundation for next-generation hardware security.

DOI
10.1109/isit63088.2025.11195487

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We present an information-theoretic framework for secure storage and message identification utilizing fully quantum physically unclonable functions (QPUFs). Extending prior models rooted in classical and hybrid classical-quantum PUFs, we propose a fully quantum setting that enables robust identification protocols in the presence of a powerful quantum wiretapper holding correlated side information. We derive achievable second-order identification rates under stringent privacy leakage constraints and show that secure identification is feasible whenever a positive secret key rate can be extracted from the QPUF output—establishing a quantum analogue of the classical dichotomy theorem. Furthermore, we demonstrate that augmenting the system with an auxiliary public quantum source enhances identification capacity without increasing privacy leakage. Our results provide a rigorous theoretical foundation for quantum-secure identification and storage, with implications for next-generation communication systems and adversarial environments requiring low-latency, energy-efficient quantum-secure storage protocols.
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Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) have garnered significant attention for their potential in enhancing the security of IoT devices, offering an alternative to traditional computational-based approaches. Despite their potential, classical PUFs suffer from critical drawbacks, including vulnerability to machine learning attacks and inadequate defense against quantum adversaries. To address these limitations, alternative architectures utilizing quantum mechanical principles, known as Quantum PUFs (QPUFs), have been proposed. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the diverse range of QPUFs, detailing their architectures and security features. Additionally, it explores the information-theoretic applications of QPUFs in IoT, including secret key generation, secure storage, authentication, and identification. The findings indicate that classical results translate effectively to the quantum domain in most cases, with QPUFs exhibiting larger capacity regions compared to their classical counterparts.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) enables Information-Theoretically Secure (ITS) key exchange, robust even against future quantum computing threats. However, a fundamental limitation of QKD is the requirement for an authenticated classical channel, which necessitates a pre-shared secret key. In this work, we address this challenge by adopting a Hybrid Entangled Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) protocol for authentication. We demonstrate that this PUF-based method generates an ITS initial key under minimal explicit hardware assumptions. This approach allows us to experimentally perform a fully ITS-authenticated entanglement-based QKD protocol that relies solely on such assumptions, effectively eliminating the need for pre-shared secrets. This represents a significant step towards the practical realization of quantum network protocols using lightweight, readily available hardware assumptions, without weakening security guarantees.