Man in the Middle and Current Injection Attacks Against the KLJN Key Exchanger Compromised by DC Sources

Abstract

This study addresses a new question regarding the security of the Kirchhoff-Law-Johnson-Noise (KLJN) scheme compromised by DC sources at Alice and Bob: What is the impact of these parasitic sources on active attacks, such as the man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, or the current injection attack if Alice and Bod did not eliminate these sources? The surprising answer is that the parasitic DC sources actually increase the security of the system because, in the case of the MITM attack, they make easier to uncover the eavesdropping than the ideal situation. In some of the cases, Eve can fix this deficiency but then the problem gets reduced to the original MITM attack to which the KLJN scheme is immune, it is already proven earlier.