Blog: Quantum Crypto Products Cracked By Researchers

Quantum Crypto Products Cracked By Researchers
Government Computer News (09/10/10) William Jackson

A European research team has shown that commercial implementations of quantum key distribution (QKD) are subject to eavesdropping with off-the-shelf materials. "Here we demonstrate experimentally that the detectors in two commercially available QKD systems can be fully remote-controlled using specially tailored bright illumination," the researchers write. However, U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology scientist Xiao Tang disputes their conclusion, saying the attack technique can be prevented. "This type of attack is not new and is based on the idea of the intercept-resend attack," in which the eavesdropper intercepts information and then passes it along to the intended recipient, he says. Although the European researchers demonstrated a practical implementation of the attack, Tang says it can be easily prevented. The European demonstration is not meant to discredit QKD, but to strengthen an emerging technology. "Rather than demonstrating that practical QKD cannot become provably secure, our findings clearly show the necessity of investigating the practical security of QKD," write the researchers.

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