Preventing side-channel effects in continuous-variable quantum key distribution

TL;DR

This paper investigates how side channels affect continuous-variable quantum key distribution security and proposes feasible methods to completely eliminate their negative impact through optimal manipulations and monitoring.

Contribution

It introduces practical techniques to neutralize side-channel effects in CV-QKD, enhancing security by controlling information leakage and noise infusion.

Findings

Side channels increase vulnerability to eavesdropping.

Optimal manipulations can fully remove side-channel effects.

Monitoring residual noise can eliminate side-channel influence.

Abstract

The role of the side channels in the continuous-variable quantum key distribution is studied. It is shown how the information leakage through a side channel from the trusted sender station increases the vulnerability of the protocols to the eavesdropping in the main quantum communication channel. Moreover, the untrusted noise infusion by an eavesdropper on the trusted receiving side breaks the security even for a purely attenuating main quantum channel. As a method to compensate for the effect of the side-channel leakage on the sender side, we suggest several types of manipulations on the side-channel input. It is shown that by applying the modulated coherent light on the input of the side channel that is optimally correlated to the modulation on the main signal and optionally, introducing additional squeezing in the case of the squeezed-state protocol, the negative influence of the lossy side channel on the sender side can be completely removed. For the trusted receiving side, the method of optimal monitoring of the residual noise from the side-channel noise infusion is suggested and shown to be able to completely eliminate the presence of the noisy side channel. We therefore prove that the side-channel effects can be completely removed using feasible operations if the trusted parties access the respective parts of the side channels.