Security analysis of practical continuous-variable quantum key distribution systems under laser seeding attack

Opt Express. 2019 Sep 16;27(19):27369-27384. doi: 10.1364/OE.27.027369.

Abstract

Here, we investigate the security of the practical one-way CVQKD and CV-MDI-QKD systems under laser seeding attack. In particular, Eve can inject a suitable light into the laser diodes of the light source modules in the two kinds of practical CVQKD systems, which results in the increased intensity of the generated optical signal. The parameter estimation under laser seeding attack shows that the secret key rates of these two schemes may be overestimated, which indicates that this attack can open a security loophole for Eve to successfully obtain information about secret key in these practical CVQKD systems. To close this loophole, we propose a real-time monitoring scheme to precisely evaluate the secret key rates of these schemes. The analysis results indicate the implementation of the proposed monitoring scheme can effectively resist this potential attack.