2017/04/30 by Shihan Sajeed, Carter Minshull, Nitin Jain +1 · 65 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Biology #Computational biology #Computer science #Computer security #Horse #Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Trojan #Trojan horse #Virology #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41598-017-08279-1
published in Scientific Reports 7(1), 8403 (Nature Portfolio) · 8 pages, 3 figures, due to problem in the compilation of bibliography, we are uploading a corrected version
arxiv created 2017/07/12 · openalex publication_date 2017/08/10 · arxiv updated 2017/08/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We demonstrate the experimental feasibility of a Trojan-horse attack that remains nearly invisible to the single-photon detectors employed in practical quantum key distribution (QKD) systems, such as Clavis2 from ID Quantique. We perform a detailed numerical comparison of the attack performance against Scarani-Ac´ın-Ribordy-Gisin (SARG04) QKD protocol at 1924 nm versus that at 1536 nm. The attack strategy was proposed earlier but found to be unsuccessful at the latter wavelength, as reported in N. Jain et al., New J. Phys. 16, 123030 (2014). However at 1924 nm, we show experimentally that the noise response of the detectors to bright pulses is greatly reduced, and show by modeling that the same attack will succeed. The invisible nature of the attack poses a threat to the security of practical QKD if proper countermeasures are not adopted.