Impersonation attack on a quantum secure direct communication and authentication protocol with improvement

摘要

We analyze the security of a quantum secure direct communication and authentication protocol based on single photons. We first give an impersonation attack on the protocol. The cryptanalysis shows that there is a gap in the authentication procedure of the protocol so that an opponent can reveal the secret information by an undetectable attempt. We then propose an improvement for the protocol and show it closes the gap by applying a mutual authentication procedure. In the improved protocol single photons are transmitted once in a session, so it is easy to implement as the primary protocol. Furthermore, we use a novel technique for secret order rearrangement of photons by which not only quantum storage is eliminated also a secret key can be reused securely. So the new protocol is applicable in practical approaches like embedded system devices.