Cryptanalysis and improvement of quantum broadcast communication and authentication protocol with a quantum one-time pad

Abstract

The security of quantum broadcast communication (QBC) and authentication protocol based on Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state and quantum one-time pad is analyzed. It is shown that there are some security issues in this protocol. Firstly, an external eavesdropper can take the intercept-measure-resend attack strategy to eavesdrop on 0.369 bit of every bit of the identity string of each receiver without being detected. Meanwhile, 0.524 bit of every bit of the secret message can be eavesdropped on without being detected. Secondly, an inner receiver can take the intercept-measure-resend attack strategy to eavesdrop on half of the identity string of the other's definitely without being checked. In addition, an alternative attack called the CNOT-operation attack is discussed. As for the multi-party QBC protocol, the attack efficiency increases with the increase of the number of users. Finally, the QBC protocol is improved to a secure one.

Universal and General Quantum Simultaneous Secret Distribution with Dense Coding by Using One-Dimensional High-Level Cluster States

“…Since both QSDC and DSQC concern about the transmission of deterministic secret message or key, we do not strictly distinguish them here. Quantum broadcast communication (QBC) [23][24][25] , as an extension of QDC, was put forward several years ago, involving a sender and multiple receivers. In QBC, a sender broadcasts the same secret message to a set of receivers by using the properties of quantum mechanics.…”

Cryptanalysis of Controlled Bidirectional Quantum Secure Direct Communication Network Using Classical XOR Operation and Quantum Entanglement

“…To be specific, the information leakage problem exists in this protocol. It is also fragile against the intercept-measure-resend attack [24], [25] and the Controlled-Not (CNOT) operation attack [25] by an outside adversary. In addition, the controller can make an effective attack, the so-called different initial state attack [26], to gain all the messages the users transmitted.…”