Creation of backdoors in quantum communications via laser damage
Vadim Makarov, Jean Philippe Bourgoin, Poompong Chaiwongkhot, Mathieu Gagné, Thomas D. Jennewein, Sarah Kaiser, Raman Kashyap, Matthieu Legré, Carter Minshull, Shihan Sajeed · Physical Review A · 2016
Practical quantum communication (QC) protocols are assumed to be secure provided implemented devices are properly characterized and all known side channels are closed. We show that this is not always true. We demonstrate a laser-damage attack capable of modifying device behavior on demand. We test it on two practical QC systems for key distribution and coin tossing, and show that newly created deviations lead to side channels. This reveals that laser damage is a potential security risk to existing QC systems, and necessitates their testing to guarantee security.