Effect of imperfect Faraday mirrors on security of a Faraday-Michelson quantum cryptography system

Abstract

The one-way Faraday-Michelson system is a very useful practical quantum cryptography system where Faraday mirrors(FMs) play an important role. In this paper we analyze the security of this system against imperfect FMs. We consider the security loophole caused by the imperfect FMs in Alice's and Bob's security zones. Then we implement a passive Faraday mirror attack in this system. By changing the values of the imperfection parameters of Alice's FMs, we calculate the quantum bit error rate between Alice and Bob induced by Eve and the probability that Eve obtains outcomes successfully. It is shown that the imperfection of one of Alice's two FMs makes the system sensitive to the attack. At last we give a modified key rate as a function of the Faraday mirror imperfections. The security analysis indicates that both Alice's and Bob's imperfect FMs can compromise the secure key.

13 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Hacking commercial quantum cryptography systems by tailored bright illumination
• Phase-Remapping Attack in Practical Quantum Key Distribution Systems
• Passive faraday mirror attack in practical two-way quantum key distribution system
• Security of quantum key distribution with arbitrary individual imperfections

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Quantum man-in-the-middle attack on the calibration process of quantum key distribution
• Strong light illumination on gain-switched semiconductor lasers helps the eavesdropper in practical quantum key distribution systems