INFR11187 : Information Security: Quantum Cryptography

Answer

Introduction

Quantum cryptography can be defined as the exploitation of certain quantum mechanical properties for the performing of cryptographic task (Bouwmeester, Ekert & Zeilinger, 2013). The most popular and the best example of this quantum cryptography is the respective quantum key distribution that eventually offers the information theoretically secured solutions to all types of key exchange problems. The major benefit of this quantum cryptography eventually lies within the factor that it enables the completion of each and every cryptographic task, which is conjectured or proven for being impossible with the help of non quantum communications (Bennett & Brassard, 2014). The data could not be copied within the quantum state and hence this data alters the state of data.

The following report aims to explain the entire concept of quantum cryptography with relevant details. Quantum cryptography is the new advancement in cryptographic field. There are various important and significant advantages of this technology and hence the users are highly benefitted from this. However, few issues or challenges are also present within the technology, which are required to be mitigated as soon as possible.

Discussion

Definition of Quantum Cryptography

The quantum cryptography is the significant branch for exploitation of quantum properties for obtaining a better performance from the various tasks related to cryptography (Mirhosseini et al., 2015). It is one of the most secured forms of cryptography that helps to provide the safest and the most relevant information or data to its users. The quantum key distribution is one of the most popular types of quantum cryptography, that utilizes signature schemes like RSA or Rivest Shamir Adleman Algorithm as well as ECC or elliptic curve cryptography to encrypt the data properly. One of the most significant threats within the quantum key distribution is eavesdropping (Pirandola et al., 2015). The data could be kept safe and secured irrespective of its size and the theory of quantum does not violate the knowledge of physics.

Benefits of Quantum Cryptography

The quantum cryptography comprises of various important and significant advantages or benefits that make the technology extremely popular for the users. These advantages are given below:

iii) Maintains Integrity in Data: Another important advantage of the quantum cryptography is that it maintains integrity within the sensitive data or information. There are certain cryptographic has functions that ensure that the intended users are getting data integrity (Buhrman et al., 2014). The hash functions like the hash value, digital fingerprint, message digest and many more are the major requirements for data integrity maintenance.

Challenges of Quantum Cryptography

In spite of having such popular and definite advantages, there are some of the major challenges or issues that make this form of cryptography extremely vulnerable for the users (Jain et al., 2014). These challenges of quantum cryptography are given below:

iii) Lack of Administrative Control: The third important and noteworthy challenge in quantum cryptography is the lack of administrative control (Tomamichel et al., 2013). There is an utmost requirement of the information security for the selective access control and this could not be realized with the utilization of quantum cryptography. The administrative processes and controls are highly mandatory for exercising the information security.

Mitigation of Challenges in Quantum Cryptography

The various strategies for mitigating the challenges in quantum cryptography are as follows:

iii) Policy Based Controls: The policy based controls are another important strategy to mitigate the issues related to quantum cryptography (Chen et al., 2016). These policy based controls are extremely strict and are used for the proper prevention of misuse or reuse of the respective cryptographic keys.

vii) Automated Key Rotation: The automated key rotation is the next mitigation strategy for mitigating the challenges in quantum cryptography (Buhrman et al., 2014).

Future Research Directions

The significant security of quantum key distribution or QKD protocol can be a future research direction. Moreover, the unconditional security or privacy of this quantum cryptography for reducing the increasing challenges is also inevitable in future (Weedbrook,  Ottaviani & Pirandola, 2014). The next future direction is the detection of sniffing and hence reducing the existing threats and vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that quantum cryptography utilizes the recent knowledge of physics for the purpose of developing the respective cryptosystem, which could not be defeated for being completely secured without the sender’s or receiver’s knowledge about all of these messages. The photons involved in this cryptography, help in offering the required qualities and these qualities are present in the information carrier in an optical fibre cable. The high bandwidth communications are extremely popular for the quantum cryptography. The above report has properly described the broad concept of the quantum cryptography and its proper usage. There are several advantages or benefits in the quantum cryptography. These advantages are extremely important and vital for the users since they get proper significance from this technology. The noteworthy issues are also identified in this report and hence the relevant mitigation ideas are also provided here. Future research directions are also provided in this report for quantum cryptography.      

References

Bennett, C. H., & Brassard, G. (2014). Quantum cryptography: Public key distribution and coin tossing. Theor. Comput. Sci., 560(P1), 7-11.

Bouwmeester, D., Ekert, A. K., & Zeilinger, A. (Eds.). (2013). The physics of quantum information: quantum cryptography, quantum teleportation, quantum computation. Springer Science & Business Media.

Broadbent, A., & Schaffner, C. (2016). Quantum cryptography beyond quantum key distribution. Designs, Codes and Cryptography, 78(1), 351-382.

Buhrman, H., Chandran, N., Fehr, S., Gelles, R., Goyal, V., Ostrovsky, R., & Schaffner, C. (2014). Position-based quantum cryptography: Impossibility and constructions. SIAM Journal on Computing, 43(1), 150-178.

Chen, L., Chen, L., Jordan, S., Liu, Y. K., Moody, D., Peralta, R., ... & Smith-Tone, D. (2016). Report on post-quantum cryptography. US Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Jain, N., Anisimova, E., Khan, I., Makarov, V., Marquardt, C., & Leuchs, G. (2014). Trojan-horse attacks threaten the security of practical quantum cryptography. New Journal of Physics, 16(12), 123030.

Mirhosseini, M., Magaña-Loaiza, O. S., O’Sullivan, M. N., Rodenburg, B., Malik, M., Lavery, M. P., ... & Boyd, R. W. (2015). High-dimensional quantum cryptography with twisted light. New Journal of Physics, 17(3), 033033.

Pirandola, S. (2014). Quantum discord as a resource for quantum cryptography. Scientific reports, 4, 6956.

Pirandola, S., Ottaviani, C., Spedalieri, G., Weedbrook, C., Braunstein, S. L., Lloyd, S., ... & Andersen, U. L. (2015). High-rate measurement-device-independent quantum cryptography. Nature Photonics, 9(6), 397.

Tamaki, K., Curty, M., Kato, G., Lo, H. K., & Azuma, K. (2014). Loss-tolerant quantum cryptography with imperfect sources. Physical Review A, 90(5), 052314.

Tomamichel, M., Fehr, S., Kaniewski, J., & Wehner, S. (2013). A monogamy-of-entanglement game with applications to device-independent quantum cryptography. New Journal of Physics, 15(10), 103002.

Weedbrook, C., Ottaviani, C., & Pirandola, S. (2014). Two-way quantum cryptography at different wavelengths. Physical Review A, 89(1), 012309.