Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions: Possibilities and Impossibilities

Abstract

A Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) is a device with unique behaviour that is hard to clone hence providing a secure fingerprint. A variety of PUF structures and PUF-based applications have been explored theoretically as well as being implemented in practical settings. Recently, the inherent unclonability of quantum states has been exploited to derive the quantum analogue of PUF as well as new proposals for the implementation of PUF. We present the first comprehensive study of quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (qPUFs) with quantum cryptographic tools. We formally define qPUFs, encapsulating all requirements of classical PUFs as well as introducing a new testability feature inherent to the quantum setting only. We use a quantum game-based framework to define different levels of security for qPUFs: quantum exponential unforgeability, quantum existential unforgeability and quantum selective unforgeability. We introduce a new quantum attack technique based on the universal quantum emulator algorithm of Marvin and Lloyd to prove no qPUF can provide quantum existential unforgeability. On the other hand, we prove that a large family of qPUFs (called unitary PUFs) can provide quantum selective unforgeability which is the desired level of security for most PUF-based applications.

32 pages including the appendix

References in corpus (5)

• Optimal cloning of unitary transformations
• Theoretical framework for physical unclonable functions, including quantum readout
• Intercept-Resend Emulation Attacks Against a Continuous-Variable Quantum Authentication Protocol with Physical Unclonable Keys
• Universal superposition of arbitrary orthogonal states
• Efficient Construction of Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions with Unitary t-designs

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Client-Server Identification Protocols with Quantum PUF
• Authentication of optical physical unclonable functions based on single-pixel detection
• Theoretical framework for physical unclonable functions, including quantum readout
• Quantum cryptography beyond key distribution: theory and experiment
• Physical Security in the Post-quantum Era: A Survey on Side-channel Analysis, Random Number Generators, and Physically Unclonable Functions
• Quantum Lock: A Provable Quantum Communication Advantage
• Learning Classical Readout Quantum PUFs based on single-qubit gates
• Estimating the randomness of quantum circuit ensembles up to 50 qubits
• Comparison of Quantum PUF models
• Remote quantum-safe authentication of entities with physical unclonable functions
• Efficient Construction of Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions with Unitary t-designs
• A Unified Framework For Quantum Unforgeability
• Optimal depth and a novel approach to variational quantum process tomography
• Learning Quantum Processes with Quantum Statistical Queries
• Agnostic Process Tomography
• Physical Unclonable Functions with Boson Sampling