Abstract
Cryptography is an unexpected revolution in information security in the recent decades, where remarkable improvements have been created to provide confidentiality and integrity. Quantum cryptography is one such improvement that has grown rapidly since the first announced protocol. Quantum cryptography contains substantial elements that must be addressed to ensure secure communication between legitimate parties. Quantum key distribution (QKD), a technique for creating a secret key, is one of the most interesting areas in quantum cryptography. This paper reviews some well-known quantum key distribution techniques that have been demonstrated in the past three decades. Furthermore, this paper discusses the process of creating a secret key using quantum mechanics and cryptography methods. Moreover, it explains the relationships between many basic aspects of QKD protocols and suggests some improvements in the cryptosystem. An accurate quantitative comparison between the QKD protocols is presented, especially the runtime execution for each QKD protocol. In addition, the paper will demonstrate a general model of each considered QKD protocol based on security principles.
Highlights
For several years, cryptographers have experimented with encryption/decryption techniques to create effective and robust methods to secure communications between two or more legitimate entities
This paper presents a set of Quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols over a period of time, as QKD is a new generation of cryptography in the information theory world
The explanation of ambiguous ideas was clearly discovered in this study to show the mechanism of each QKD protocol
Summary
Cryptographers have experimented with encryption/decryption techniques to create effective and robust methods to secure communications between two or more legitimate entities. Cryptography 2022, 6, 12 are processed using a quantum system [6] This quantum system operates based on the principles of physics and generates a secret key that is shared between communicating parties. Quantum computers are light years away from today’s technology, current cryptologists are exploring the impacts of this future technology, especially by breaking the current cryptosystem, which is based on prime factors of large numbers, such as ECC and RSA. These impacts are a threat to cryptography elements such as confidentiality, data integrity, and authentication (digital signature). Many interesting QKD protocols have been announced in the quantum cryptography world, these QKD protocols determine the most applicable and well-known protocols
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