IJQI WorldScientific - Publ. 1

Resource file: 
Introduction: 
The stability assessment of the QKD implementations in regard to quantum channel quality. Statistical data analysis of the characteristic indicators of the quality of the QKD communication.
Description: 

Analysis of the stability of the QKD transmission organized in two commercially available systems, in order to assess the susceptibility of the quantum key distribution (QKD) systems to the hacking attack including simultaneous and frequent system self-decalibrations. The first one employs non-entangled photons as flying qubits in the dark quantum channel for communication whereas the second one utilizes the entangled photon pairs to secretly share the cryptographic key. Applying standard methods of the statistical data analysis to the characteristic indicators of the quality of the QKD communication (the raw key exchange rate [RKER] and the quantum bit error rate [QBER]), the pace of the self-decalibration of both systems and the repeatability rate in the case of controlled worsening of the dark channel quality was estimated.