ANTD and Security Division Collaborate on QKD Internet

ANTD and Security Division Colaborate to Investigate Integrating QKD into Networks.

ITL's Advanced Networking Division and Security Division are collaborating to investigate the problems and complexity of integrating Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) into existing network security protocols. QKD is a provably secure method of generating and distributing secure cryptographic keys that can than be used to encrypt and decrypt messages. Existing security protocols, such as IPsec and TLS, currently rely on public key exchange methods to distribute secure keys. When quantum computer are developed such key exchange mechanisms will be broken. Furthermore, a break though algorithm may also threaten such key exchange mechanisms at any time. Transitioning to future technologies, such as QKD, must be done well before such threats become reality, because past secrets will also be vulnerable.