Biblio

The classical key distribution systems used for data transmission in networked microgrids (NMGs) rely on mathematical assumptions, which however can be broken by attacks from quantum computers. This paper addresses this quantum-era challenge by using quantum key distribution (QKD). Specifically, the novelty of this paper includes 1) a QKD-enabled communication architecture it devises for NMGs, 2) a real-time QKD- enabled NMGs testbed it builds in an RTDS environment, and 3) a novel two-level key pool sharing (TLKPS) strategy it designs to improve the system resilience against cyberattacks. Test results validate the effectiveness of the presented strategy, and provide insightful resources for building quantum-secure NMGs.

A semi-quantum key distribution (SQKD) protocol allows two users A and B to establish a shared secret key that is secure against an all-powerful adversary E even when one of the users (e.g., B) is semi-quantum or classical in nature while the other is fully-quantum. A mediated SQKD protocol allows two semi-quantum users to establish a key with the help of an adversarial quantum server. We introduce the concept of a multi-mediated SQKD protocol where two (or more) adversarial quantum servers are used. We construct a new protocol in this model and show how it can withstand high levels of quantum noise, though at a cost to efficiency. We perform an information theoretic security analysis and, along the way, prove a general security result applicable to arbitrary MM-SQKD protocols. Finally, a comparison is made to previous (S)QKD protocols.

In this work we introduce a novel QKD protocol capable of smoothly transitioning, via a user-tuneable parameter, from classical to semi-quantum in order to help understand the effect of quantum communication resources on secure key distribution. We perform an information theoretic security analysis of this protocol to determine what level of "quantumness" is sufficient to achieve security, and we discover some rather interesting properties of this protocol along the way.

In this paper we show how genetic algorithms can be effectively applied to study the security of arbitrary quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols when faced with adversaries limited to current-day technology. We compare two approaches, both of which take into account practical limitations on the quantum power of an adversary (which can be specified by the user). Our system can be used to determine upper-bounds on noise tolerances of novel QKD protocols in this scenario, thus making it a useful tool for researchers. We compare our algorithm's results with current known numerical results, and also evaluate it on newer, more complex, protocols where no results are currently known.

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) allows two parties to establish a shared secret key secure against an all-powerful adversary. Typically, one designs new QKD protocols and then analyzes their maximal tolerated noise mathematically. If the noise in the quantum channel connecting the two parties is higher than this threshold value, they must abort. In this paper we design and evaluate a new real-coded Genetic Algorithm which takes as input statistics on a particular quantum channel (found using standard channel estimation procedures) and outputs a QKD protocol optimized for the specific given channel. We show how this method can be used to find QKD protocols for channels where standard protocols would fail.