Attack to quantum cryptosystems through RF fingerprints from photon detectors

Abstract

The well-known RF penetration method is implemented on the quantum cryptosystems. In this study, RF radiations from the single photon detectors in a quantum key distribution system are intercepted. It was found that the data contents of a quantum transmission system can be detected from the vicinity of the receiving parties by exploiting the radiations of avalanche effect of single photon detectors. We showed that any Geiger-mode avalanche photodetector acts like a downconverter that converts the optical-wavelength photons to radio-wavelength photons. In our experiment, the fingerprints of the avalanche radiations from commercial single photon detectors were fed to a trained deep learning neural network, and the bit content of quantum transmission was cloned with >99% accuracy up to a distance of 2 meters from the detectors. We also speculate on the enhancement of the key cloning accuracy and range of the eavesdropping.