Secured Quantum Identity Authentication Protocol for Quantum Networks

The emergence of sixth-generation (6G) networks presents a promising paradigm aimed at meeting stringent quality-of-service (QoS) requirements, thereby paving the way for modern applications such as the metaverse. In contrast, the advent of quantum computers poses a significant threat to the security of such networks. However, the quantum Internet signifies a remarkable advancement in communication technology, harnessing the principles of quantum entanglement and superposition to facilitate unparalleled levels of security and efficient computations. Quantum communication can be achieved through the utilization of quantum entanglement. Through the exchange of entangled pairs between two entities, quantum communication becomes feasible, enabled by the process of quantum teleportation. Given the lossy nature of the channels and the exponential decoherence of the transmitted photons, a set of intermediate nodes can serve as quantum repeaters to perform entanglement swapping and directly entangle two distant nodes. Such quantum repeaters may be malicious and by setting up malicious entanglements, intermediate nodes can jeopardize the confidentiality of the quantum information exchanged between the two communication nodes. Hence, this paper proposes a quantum identity authentication protocol that protects quantum networks from malicious entanglements. Unlike the existing protocols, the proposed quantum authentication protocol does not require periodic refreshments of the shared secret keys. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed protocol can detect malicious entanglements with a 100% probability after an average of 4 authentication rounds. Moreover, the average number of authentication rounds required to detect an attack is reduced by 69% and 76.5% compared with benchmark protocols. Index Terms—Quantum identity authentication, quantum communications, malicious entanglement, quantum security, quantum Internet, 6G.