Secure quantum key distribution with a subset of malicious devices

Abstract The malicious manipulation of quantum key distribution (QKD) hardware is a serious threat to its security, as, typically, neither end users nor QKD manufacturers can validate the integrity of every component of their QKD system in practice. One possible approach to re-establish the security...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Víctor Zapatero, Marcos Curty
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2021-02-01
Series:npj Quantum Information
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41534-020-00358-y
Description
Summary:Abstract The malicious manipulation of quantum key distribution (QKD) hardware is a serious threat to its security, as, typically, neither end users nor QKD manufacturers can validate the integrity of every component of their QKD system in practice. One possible approach to re-establish the security of QKD is to use a redundant number of devices. Following this idea, we address various corruption models of the possibly malicious devices and show that, compared to the most conservative model of active and collaborative corrupted devices, natural assumptions allow to significantly enhance the secret key rate or considerably reduce the necessary resources. Furthermore, we show that, for most practical situations, the resulting finite-size secret key rate is similar to that of the standard scenario assuming trusted devices.
ISSN:2056-6387