The Strategy of Beating the Intermediate Basis Attack in Quantum Communication Networks

Quantum communication network is a new type of secure communication technique and has drawn a lot of attentions in recent years, it has absolute safety in theory. However, quantum communication networks can still be attacked in different ways, among which the intermediate basis attack based on intercept-resend is a typical eavesdropping strategy. With this method, The probability of the eavesdropper correctly guessing the sender’s code value can reach up to 0.854, resulting in the quantum bit error rate (QBER) of 0.25. To improve the security performance of quantum communication networks, we propose a strategy based on attack basis detection for beating the intermediate basis attack named “WN19”. In WN19, we can reduce QBER and the probability of the eavesdropper obtaining information correctly by adjusting the initial state of the quantum state of the sender according to the result of attack basis detection. The simulation results show that if the polarization angle $\theta$ of the attack basis is $\pi/8$, the QBER reduces from 0.25 to 0.1367 and the probability of eavesdropper correctly obtaining information decreases from 0.854 to 0.5811. It effectively improves the security of quantum cryptography under intermediate basis attack and provides a theoretical basis for the healthy development of quantum communication system.