Controlled secure direct quantum communication inspired scheme for quantum identity authentication

To achieve unconditional security through quantum key distribution (QKD), users involved in key distribution first need to authenticate each other. Classical identity authentication schemes were used in all the early implementations of QKD, but realizing their potential vulnerability, a few protocols for quantum identity authentication (QIA) have been proposed in the recent past. Here, we propose a new protocol for QIA which is constructed by modifying the concept of controlled secure direct quantum communication. The proposed controlled secure direct quantum communication inspired scheme for QIA allows two users Alice and Bob to mutually authenticate each other's identity with the help of a third-party Charlie using Bell states. The security of the proposed protocol is critically analyzed, and it is shown that the proposed protocol is secure against several known attacks including impersonation attack, intercept and resend attack, and impersonated fraudulent attack. Further, the relevance of the proposed protocol is established by comparing it with a set of existing protocols for QIA with specific attention to the advantages of the present protocol.