Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Hackers Eavesdrop On Quantum Crypto With Lasers

Posted by timothy on from the wool-over-your-own-eyes dept.

Martin Hellman writes "According to an article in Nature magazine, quantum hackers have performed the first 'invisible' attack on two commercial quantum cryptographic systems. By using lasers on the systems — which use quantum states of light to encrypt information for transmission —' they have fully cracked their encryption keys, yet left no trace of the hack.'"

3 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Re:pwned by neumayr · · Score: 5, Informative
    Not really. From the article:

    "We have exploited a purely technological loophole that turns a quantum cryptographic system into a classical system, without anyone noticing," says Makarov.

    --
    Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
  2. Re:Lessons by neumayr · · Score: 5, Informative
    The underlying principle still is valid, those people exploited a technical loophole - in a process that's part of

    [..] years of dedicated effort in an open environment.

    --
    Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
  3. Re:pwned by Unipuma · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you read the article, you'll notice that the 'hack' is a classic man in the middle attack, and the receiving end can receive both classic and quantum messages. The man in the middle (after reading the quantum message) passes it on as a classic message, and the receiving device does not give a warning that the message received is a classic message, instead of a quantum message.

    So it's really an design error on the device side, not a true hack in that quantum states were undisturbed regardless of reading them.