The keyless entry systems in cars enable users to lock or unlock cars remotely. One of the popular types of keyless entry systems used in cars is the Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) system. With the advent of quantum computers, quantum computing-enabled cyber-attacks are an imminent threat. The security offered by current cryptographic techniques is inadequate to protect systems such as RKE from such future quantum attacks. In this paper, we propose a quantum-safe authentication protocol leveraging Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) that authenticates a legitimate key fob before unlocking the car. We present a formal security proof and an informal analysis to show that the protocol is secure against several attacks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first protocol that protects RKE systems from future quantum computing-enabled cyber-attacks, in addition to the existing replay and RollJam attacks.
A Quantum Safe Authentication Protocol for Remote Keyless Entry Systems in Cars
2023-10-10
1131763 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English