Quantum walks-based simple authenticated quantum cryptography protocols for secure wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Abstract Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) play a crucial role in various applications, ranging from environmental monitoring to industrial automation that require high levels of security. With the development of quantum technologies, many security mechanisms may be hacked due to the promising capabilities of quantum computation. To address this challenge, quantum protocols have emerged as a promising solution for enhancing the security of wireless sensor communications. One of the common types of quantum protocols is quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, which are investigated to allow two participants with fully quantum capabilities to share a random secret key, while semi-quantum key distribution (SQKD) protocols are designed to perform the same task using fewer quantum resources to make quantum communications more realizable and practical. Quantum walk (QW) plays an essential role in quantum computing, which is a universal quantum computational paradigm. In this work, we utilize the advantages of QW to design three authenticated quantum cryptographic protocols to establish secure channels for data transmission between sensor nodes: the first one is authenticated quantum key distribution (AQKD), the second one is authenticated semi-quantum key distribution (ASQKD) with one of the two participants having limited quantum capabilities, and the last one is ASQKD but both legitimate users possess limited quantum resources. The advantages of the proposed protocols are that the partners can exchange several different keys with the same exchanged qubits, and the presented protocols depend on a one-way quantum communication channel. In contrast, all previously designed SQKD protocols rely on two-way quantum communication. Security analyses prove that the presented protocols are secure against various well-known attacks and highly efficient. The utilization of the presented protocols in wireless sensor communications opens up new avenues for secure and trustworthy data transmission, enabling the deployment of resilient WSNs in critical applications. This work also paves the way for future exploration of quantum-based security protocols and their integration into WSNs for enhanced data protection.