This story has been updated with quotes from Ciena's Patrick Scully.
JPMorgan Chase, Toshiba and Ciena successfully completed a proof-of-concept demonstration of a Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) network supporting 800 Gbps data rates, an achievement which comes as companies in many industries are starting to look toward QKD and other quantum-based technologies to protect their networks and data from increasingly sophisticated security attacks.
Quantum computing itself represents a potential future threat, as many believe that quantum computers, which remain at an early stage in their evolution but are advancing quickly, eventually will be able to break current encryption methods. "Hack now, decrypt later" attacks, in which encrypted data may be stolen now and unlocked in the future by a quantum computer, are of growing concern. Using QKD to enable secure communications is one step–and the only mathematically-proven one, researchers claimed–toward creating more quantum-safe network environments.
"A number of customers are concerned about the “hack now, decrypt later” type of attacks, primarily as it pertains to data with a long shelf-life value," said Patrick Scully, senior advisor at Ciena, in an email to Fierce Telecom. "For example, data such as intellectual property or information with national security implications is extremely sensitive even if accessed several years after the data is hacked."
Ciena, which was one of the earliest proponents of optical layer encryption in networks–has been studying QKD and other “post-quantum cryptography” technologies for several years, according to Ciena blog posts dating back to 2017. Also, Toshiba and BT late last year used QKD to create a quantum-secure metro network environment in London, and network operators like Verizon and Colt, the latter in a teaming with ADVA, also have been advancing their use of QKD.
Scully said of QKD, "Whereas sufficiently powerful quantum computers are not yet available to break existing classical key exchange algorithms, we are seeing an increasing interest in [QKD] and other a
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In this proof-of-concept, researchers from the three companies, under the leadership of JPMorgan Chase’s Future Lab for Applied Research and Engineering (FLARE) and Global Network Infrastructure teams, demonstrated the ability for a QKD network–one that could span metropolitan areas–to detect and defend against eavesdroppers, according to a statement. Being able to support 800 Gbps data rates means that such a network could protect mission-critical applications under real-world environmental conditions from quantum computing-based attacks, the statement said.
Researchers studied the impact of realistic environmental factors on the quality of the quantum channel. They also used a QKD-secured optical channel to deploy and secure Liink by J.P. Morgan, the world's first bank-led, production-grade, peer-to-peer blockchain network. The finance giant claimed that this effort was the first demonstration of QKD securing a mission-critical blockchain application in the industry.
The proof of concept network infrastructure relied on Toshiba’s Multiplexed QKD System and Ciena’s Waveserver 5 platform, equipped with 800 Gbps optical-layer encryption and open APIs running over Ciena’s 6500 photonic solution. The tests were conducted in JPMorgan Chase’s fiber optic production simulation lab.
As far as next steps are concerned, a JPMorgan Chase spokeswoman told Fierce via email, "JPMorgan Chase continues to conduct research on QKD. Our research in the near-term is for finding novel applications for QKD and contributing to efforts to make it more applicable to finance-related use cases. For the long term, the bank intends to investigate how to support long-distance QKD by contributing research in quantum repeaters and satellite-based quantum communication."
Notable results of this demonstration, also discussed in a published paper, included the following:
- A QKD channel was multiplexed on the same fiber as ultra-high bandwidth 800 Gbps optical channels for the first time and used to provide keys for encryption of the data stream.
- Co-existence of the quantum channel with two 800 Gbps and eight 100 Gbps channels was demonstrated for a 70km fiber, with a key rate sufficient to support up to 258 AES-256 encrypted channels at a key refresh rate of 1 key/sec.
- Operation of QKD and the ten high-bandwidth channels was demonstrated for distances up to 100km.
Ciena's Scully noted that QKD is just one step toward post-quantum cryptography, and that the National Institute of Standards and technology continues to work toward the release of multiple quantum-resistant algorithms. He said Ciena will continue to keep pace with developments in this area.
"Ciena will continue to deliver secure and certified optical networking solutions to safe-guard critical data as it traverses the network - scaling up to 800Gbps that is already generally available and beyond - providing resistance against quantum computer attacks," he stated. "We will continue to innovate and work closely with our cust