Quantum cryptography with malicious devices

Abstract

© 2018 SPIE. The current paradigm for the security of quantum key distribution (QKD) relies on the legitimate users of the system trusting their devices, which include both the quantum communication components and the classical post-processing units. However, in view of the memory attacks recently proposed against device-independent QKD, as well as the many hardware and software Trojan Horse attacks that threaten the security of conventional cryptography today, such trust is a very strong and unjustified assumption. Here we review a recent proposal to solve this problem based on the use of verifiable secret sharing and redundancies. We show that this approach can deliver secret key rates which are comparable to those obtained in an ideal scenario with honest devices.