Detection of Eavesdropping Attacks in a Noisy Quantum Channel Using k-Means Clustering: A Case Study of BB84 Protocol
Muhammad Idham Habibie, Khondaker M. Salehin · 2025
QKD has been extensively studied as a means to establish secure communication channels resistant to eavesdropping attacks, offering a promising solution to safeguarding shared keys. For instance, the BB84 protocol, a well-known QKD scheme, was specifically designed to counteract both noise and eavesdropping attacks through polarization states. However, while depolarizing noise and eavesdropping attacks can degrade the performance of this protocol, no comprehensive study has analyzed their combined impacts. This paper investigates eavesdropping attacks by modeling and analyzing their effects in conjunction with depolarizing errors in communication channels. We further propose the use of k-means clustering algorithm to analyze potential eavesdropping attacks in the context of BB84 protocol with depolarizing errors. Our findings demonstrate that the shared keys remain secure even in the presence of both noise and eavesdroppers on the communication channels. Furthermore, we find that k-means clustering is an efficient method for detecting eavesdroppers, particularly when channel noise is relatively high.