A Quantum Secure Entity Authentication Protocol Design for Network Security

Abstract

Authentication is one of the significant issues for all kinds of network communications. Most of the authentication protocols designed and implemented so far for entity authentication are based on classical cryptographic techniques to prevent themselves from different types of attacks. These protocols use either password or challenge for authentication. In this article, the design of the proposed quantum secure entity authentication protocol is shown. The proposed protocol is based on the challenge response method. Due to quantum computer capability to break mathematical complexity-based cryptographic techniques, the proposed protocol uses the one-time pad (OTP) to secure itself from attacks, i.e., eavesdropping, reply attack, password guessing attack, man-in-the-middle attack, brute-force attack, quantum computer attack, etc. Security of the proposed protocol was analyzed, and it shows that the proposed protocol may prevent itself from different types of attacks. Further, analysis for quantum Secure was carried out. From the analysis, it is found that if the OTP key is truly random and cannot be reused, then a computer with infinite capacity or quantum computer cannot break the encrypted challenge and response. The proposed protocol may be used for entity authentication for the client, server, process, and user.