Hybrid Authentication Protocols for Advanced Quantum Networks

Abstract: Authentication is a fundamental building block of secure quantum networks, essential for quantum cryptographic protocols and often debated as a key limitation of quantum key distribution (QKD) in security standards. Most quantum-safe authentication schemes rely on small pre-shared keys or post-quantum computational assumptions. In this work, we introduce a new authentication approach that combines hardware assumptions, particularly Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs), along with fundamental quantum properties of non-local states, such as local indistinguishability, to achieve provable security in entanglement-based protocols. We propose two protocols for different scenarios in entanglement-enabled quantum networks. The first protocol, referred to as the offline protocol, requires pre-distributed entangled states but no quantum communication during the authentication phase. It enables a server to authenticate clients at any time with only minimal classical communication. The second, an online protocol, requires quantum communication but only necessitates entangled state generation on the prover side. For this, we introduce a novel hardware module, the Hybrid Entangled PUF (HEPUF). Both protocols use weakly secure, off-the-shelf classical PUFs as their hardware module, yet we prove that quantum properties such as local indistinguishability enable exponential security for authentication, even in a single round. We provide full security analysis for both protocols and establish them as the first entanglement-based extension of hardware-based quantum authentication. These protocols are suitable for implementation across various platforms, particularly photonics-based ones, and offer a practical and flexible solution to the long-standing challenge of authentication in quantum communication networks.