Passive Faraday Mirror Attack

The Passive Faraday Mirror Attack targets phase-encoded QKD systems by exploiting imperfections in Faraday mirrors (FMs), which fail to provide perfect polarization rotation. This vulnerability allows the threat actor (Eve) to partially discern the polarization state of the quantum signals, thereby gaining partial knowledge of the cryptographic key.


Literature

[Sun2011] S. Sun, M. Jiang, and L. Liang. "Passive Faraday-mirror attack in a practical two-way quantum-key-distribution system" In: Phys. Rev. A 83, 062331. (2011) 10.1103/ PhysRevA.83.062331.
[Wang2013] W. Wang, M. Gao, and Z. Ma. "Effect of imperfect Faraday mirrors on the security of a Faraday-Michelson quantum cryptography system" In: J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 46 455301. (2013) 10.1088/1751-8113/46/45/455301.

QID: A-0084
Tier: T0
Type: Quantum
Tactic: Execution
Created: 2024-04-15
Updated: 2024-05-24

Technique → Countermeasures

List of countermeasures applicable to this technique.

Items: 2
Description Countermeasure

Quantifying FM imperfections and taking them into account in the security analysis [Wang2013].

Perfect alignment of FM to reduce induced errors [Sun2011].