Intercept-Resend Attack on Quantum Key Distribution Protocols with Two, Three and Four-State Systems: Comparative Analysis

The existing studies proved the importance of quantum key distribution protocols,unfortunately, most of them have been known only as theoretical models. Starting from the mathematical models, this study explores quantum alternatives to traditional key distribution protocols and involves software implementations of the quantum key distribution protocols with two, three and four-state systems. The paper presents the results obtained on case of the cybernetic attack simulation, type Intercept-Resend - the well known attack on quantum world, over the each protocol. Presence of the eavesdropper is determined by calculating the errors obtained at the end of transmission through quantum channel. The method Quantum Error Rate for detecting the eavesdropper can be applied to the majority key distribution systems, each system having its own acceptable error rate. Starting from the same size of input data, the paper presents an analysis of the data obtained on cybernetic attack simulations and analyzes the percentage of errors by comparison with the dimensions of the cryptographic keys obtained in the case of each protocol.