Authenticated Multiparty Quantum Key Agreement for Optical-Ring Quantum Communication Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes an authenticated quantum key agreement protocol for optical-ring quantum networks, enhancing security by preventing impersonation and eavesdropping, and is feasible with current technology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel authentication mechanism into quantum key agreement protocols, addressing security vulnerabilities overlooked in prior work.

Findings

Protocol is secure against common attacks and impersonation.

Requires only single photons, making it practically feasible.

Utilizes quantum state discrimination for security analysis.

Abstract

Quantum communication networks are connected by various devices to achieve communication or distributed computing for users in remote locations. In order to solve the problem of generating temporary session key for secure communication in optical-ring quantum networks, a quantum key agreement protocol is proposed. In the key agreement protocols, an attacker can impersonate a legal user to participate in the negotiation process and eavesdrop the agreement key easily. This is often overlooked in most quantum key agreement protocols, which makes them insecure in practical implementation. Considering this problem, the function of authenticating the user's identity is added in the proposed protocol. Combining classical hash function with identity information, we design the authentication operation conforming to the characteristics of quantum search algorithm. In the security analysis of the proposed protocol, quantum state discrimination is utilized to show that the protocol is secure against common attacks and impersonation attack. In addition, only single photons need to be prepared and measured, which makes our protocol feasible with existing technology.