Quantum cryptography: An emerging technology in network security

Abstract

The uses of computer communications networks technologies have increased the incidents of computer abuse. Because of these incidents, most organizations facing pressure to protect their assets. Most digital networks generally rely on modern cryptosystems to secure the confidentiality and integrity of traffic carried across the network. The current modern cryptosystems based on mathematical model introduce potential security holes related to technological progress of computing power, the key refresh rate and key expansion ratio, the most crucial parameters in the security of any cryptographic techniques. For that reason efforts have been made to establish new foundation for cryptography science in the computer communications networks. One of these efforts has led to the development of quantum cryptography technology, whose security relies on the laws of quantum mechanics [1,2,3,20, 24]. This research paper concentrates on quantum cryptography, and how this technology contributes to the network security. The scope of this research paper is to cover the weaknesses, and the security pitfalls in modern cryptography, fundamental concepts of quantum cryptography, the real — world application implementation of this technology, finally the future direction in which the quantum cryptography is headed forwards.