A novel quantum distributed key management protocol for ring-organised group

Abstract

Key distribution is a core building block for secure communication. In group communication, key distribution is not a simple extension of two-party communication. Many approaches were proposed in the classical field. Nevertheless, they are still based on the assumption that some computational problems are hard. Based on quantum mechanics lows, new field emerges allowing to generate and share a secret and secure key between two, or more, participants. In this paper, we propose new multiparty key distribution protocol in ring-organised communication group based on the well-known quantum key distribution protocol BB84. The security of the proposed solution is based on the unconditional security of the BB84 allowed by the mechanics lows and the mathematical proved secure operation XOR. In our proposed solution, each participant collaborates with a partial key in order to obtain at the end of the protocol the same group key that can be used for encryption aims. We also analyse and verify security properties of the proposed protocol. This is done using a probabilistic symbolic model-checker, the PRISM tool.