Security proof of Counterfactual Quantum Cryptography against General Intercept-resend Attacks and Its Vulnerability

Abstract: Counterfactual quantum cryptography (CQC), recently proposed by Noh, is featured with no transmission of signal particles. This exhibits evident security advantage, such as its immunity to the well known PNS attack. In this paper, the theoretical security of CQC protocol against the general intercept-resend attacks is proved by bounding the information of an eavesdropper Eve more tightly than in Yin's proposal[Phys. Rev. A 82, 042335 (2010)]. It is also showed that practical CQC implementations may be vulnerable when equipped with imperfect apparatuses, by proving that a negative key rate can be achieved when Eve launches a time-shift attack based on imperfect detector efficiency.