Proc. of 2014 IEEE 5th International Conference on Photonics (ICP), Kuala Lumpur, 2-4 Sept.
2014
Simulation of Bennet and Brassard 84 Protocol with
Eve’s Attacks
N. Hafizah Mohamed Halip, M. Mokhtar
Dept. of Computer and Communication System
Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra
Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
Abstract—A simulation of BB84 protocol of QKD using pho-
tonic simulator OptiSystem is demonstrated. The simulation is
divided into two categories which are without security attacks
scenario and with several attacks scenario that consists of
Intercept and Resend and sent new qubits. The simulation
results meet the theory of BB84. This project is able to provide
better understanding about the quantum key distribution process
especially in BB84 protocol.
Index Terms—BB84 Protocol; Cryptography; Quantum Cryp-
tography; Quantum Key Distribution; Optisystem
I. I NTRODUCTION
The security has become one of the most important tasks in
wired and wireless network. In order to have a good security in
the network, it must achieve all the security goals which are,
authentication, confidentiality, available, integrity and access
control. In the communication fields, cryptographic technique
is commonly used for secure communications. Charles Bennett
and Gilles Brassard introduced the first Quantum Key Distri-
bution in 1984 known as BB84 protocol [1]. The main idea of
this protocol is the sender can send a random secret key that
are encoded in polarization of photons to the receiver in a form
of string of photons. This protocol is based on Heisenberg’s
Uncertainty Principle that can guarantee an eavesdropper can-
not measure the photon that send from Alice to Bob without
disturbing the photons state in a noticeable way [2].
II. BB84 P ROTOCOL
In BB84 protocol, rectilinear basis (+) and diagonal basis
(×) is used are the basis sequence. Rectilinear basis consist
of two polarization state which is horizontal polarization (0◦ )
and vertical polarization (90◦ ). The horizontal and the vertical
polarization represent of 0 and 1 bit. It is same goes to the
diagonal basis that consist of two polarization state which are
45 represent 0◦ bit and -45◦ represent 1 bit. Table I shows the
bit value representation by BB84.
TABLE I: Encoding technique in BB84
Polarization Mode Symbol Bit value 0 Bit value 1
Rectiliner Basis + 0◦ , → 90◦ , ↑
Diagonal Basis × 45◦ , % 135◦ , -
The first phase of this protocol is Alice will communicate
to Bob using quantum channel. Alice will pick randomly
string of bit and she will randomly choose a basis either
978-1-4799-4883-3/14/$31.00 c 2014 IEEE
A. Buhari
Faculty of Computer Science and Information,
Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
diagonal or rectilinear. Then, she will send a bit for each
photon with corresponding polarization to Bob. When Bob
receive the bit that Alice gave to him, he will measure
the photon’s polarization by a randomly chosen basis. The
percentage of Bob getting the same basis with Alice is in
50% chances. If there is a presence of Eve at this moment,
Eve will approximately obtain the correct bit by 25% [3].
For the second phase, Bob will contact Alice in the classic
channel to tell her what basis that he used to measure each
photon. Alice will compare Bob basis and her basis and will
inform back to Bob whether he used the correct basis for each
photon. After doing this, both of Alice and Bob will discard
the photon that Bob measured with a different basis. Lastly,
Alice and Bob will have an identical string of bits that known
as sifted key [4].
III. P ROPOSED M ODELING AND S IMULATION S ETUP
In this modeling and simulation, we used the OptiSystemTM
7.0 software that offers optical communication devices sim-
ulator. The components that we used in this simulation are
User Defined Bit Sequence Generator, Optical Gaussian Pulse
Generator, Optical Attenuator, Linear Polarizer, Polarization
Rotator, Select, Optical Fiber, Switch and Polarization Ana-
lyzer. In this simulation the User Defined Bit Sequence Gener-
ator, Optical Gaussian Pulse Generator and Optical Attenuator
component is used to produce single photon per pulse [5].
The linear polarizer and polarization rotator is used to make
the photon in the desirable angle. The function of switch is
to generate randomness in sending the polarization of photon
during transmitting and during detection using rectilinear or
diagonal basis detection [6].
A. BB48 Protocol Simulation
Fig. 1 shows the simulation setup for BB84. We used four
units of each user defined bit sequence generator, optical
Gaussian pulse generator and optical attenuator to create a
single photon per pulse. We set the optical attenuator to 30 dB
and the input power is 0.0002 Watts. After we were able to get
a single photon per pulse propagate thought the optical fiber,
we set four type of polarizer which are vertical horizontal, right
diagonal and left diagonal. There are 100 sets of iteration in
this simulations and each iteration, the component ‘select’ will
choose randomly one of the polarization angles to set a qubit
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Proc. of 2014 IEEE 5th International Conference on Photonics (ICP), Kuala Lumpur, 2-4 Sept. 2014

to the receiver side via optical fiber. The component ‘select’ TABLE II: The Simulation Result With and Without Eve’s
is also used at the receiver side to simulate the randomness Attack
of selecting the diagonal or liner polarization [7]. Lastly, the Alice Eve Bob Action
polarization analyzer is used to measure the angle of the Polarization Bit Attack Bit Action Polarization Bit
(degree) (degree)
photon detected. Horizontal 0 Nil - 7 Rectilinear 0 Sift key
(0) (0)
Vertical 1 Nil - 7 Rectilinear 1 Sift key
(90) (90)
Diagonal 0 Nil - 7 Diagonal 0 Sift key
(45) (45)
Diagonal 1 Nil - 7 Diagonal 1 Sift key
(-45) (-45)
Vertical 1 Nil - ? Diagonal 0 Discard
(90) (45)
Diagonal 0 Nil - ? Rectilinear 1 Discard
(45) (90)
Horizontal 0 Intercept 0 3 Rectilinear 0 Sift key
(0) Resend (0)
Fig. 1: BB84 without Eve (Recti-
linear)
Vertical 1 Intercept 0 7 Rectilinear 1 Sift key
(90) Resend (90)
B. BB84 Operation with Eve’s Attacks (D)
Diagonal 0 Intercept 0 3 Diagonal 0 Sift key
In our simulation shown in Fig. 2, we utilized a simple (45) Resend (45)
model of demonstrating the attacks. We generalize the Eve’s (D)
attack usually based on Intercept-Resend attack strategy and Diagonal 1 Intercept 0 7 Diagonal 1 Sift key
(-45) Resend (-45)
sending a new qubit to Bob. Eve is connected between Alice (Recti-
and Bob. She launched attack to obtain the key or information linear)
from the transmitter Eve able to intercept on received qubits Horizontal 0 Intercept 1 ? Diagonal 1 Discard
and measure the qubits with rectilinear polarizers and diagonal (0) Resend (45)
(Recti-
polarizers shown in the figure. Eve will resent the qubit to Bob linear)
after she had measure it. Another attack that Eve are able to Horizontal 0 Send 0 3 Rectilinear 0 Sift key
do is she can send a new qubit to Bob. Further, she sends new (0) New (0)
Qubit
qubit to Bob that are no related to what Alice had sent. We (Recti-
use ‘select’ component for Eve’s attacks. The total number of linear)
sweep iteration is 100. Finally, we compare the polarization Diagonal 1 Send 1 7 Diagonal 1 Sift key
(45) New (45)
basis between Alice, Eve and Bob’s. Qubit
(Recti-
linear)
Diagonal 0 Send 0 ? Rectilinear 1 Discard
(-45) New (90)
Qubit
(D)
Diagonal 1 Send 1 ? Rectilinear 0 Discard
(-45) New (0)
Qubit
(D)

Meanwhile Fig. 3 shows the result of the same photon sent

Fig. 2: BB84 with Eve
IV. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
Table II shows the simulation result with and without the
Eve’s attack on BB84. Alice Bob will keep the sifted key and
discard any bit that they having different basis. We can see
that, even with the presence of Eve, Alice and Bob still can
maintain the secrecy of their bit.
by Alice and received by Bob in the same basis with the
absence of Eve. Based on our simulation which have iteration
of 100, we found that number of qubits receives by Bob is
roughly half of what Alice had sent which is 54 same basis
of qubits.
Fig. 4 shows the result of the same photon sent by Alice
and received by Bob in the same basis with the presence of
Eve. The result combines two attacks which are ‘intercept
and resent’ and ‘Eve send a new qubit’ to Bob. The result
shown that number of qubits receives by Bob is roughly half
of what Alice had sent which is 54 same basis of qubits in are
‘intercept and resent attack’ and the correct qubit that Eve get

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Proc. of 2014 IEEE 5th International Conference on Photonics (ICP), Kuala Lumpur, 2-4 Sept. 2014

[4] V. Scarani, A. Acin, G. Ribordy, and N. Gisin, “Quantum cryptography

protocols robust against photon number splitting attacks for weak laser
pulse implementations,” Physical Review Letters, vol. 92, no. 5, p.
057901, 2004.
[5] S. Lafrance, “Symbolic approach to the analysis of security protocols.”
J. UCS, vol. 10, no. 9, pp. 1156–1198, 2004.
[6] H.-K. Lo, H.-F. Chau, and M. Ardehali, “Efficient quantum key dis-
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[7] S. J. Gay and R. Nagarajan, “Types and typechecking for communicat-
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Fig. 3: Same Photon Sent By Alice and Received By Bob in

the Same Basis with the Absence of Eve

is almost half compare to Bob. In this case we can say that

the percentage of Bob obtains the qubit in same basis is 50%
and 25% for Eve. In sending new qubit scenario attack, we
can notice that the percentage of of Bob get the qubit in same
basis is slight lower that intercept and resent attack. However,
the percentage of Eve getting the correct qubit is still half of
percentage of Bob.

Fig. 4: Comparison of Performance between IR Attack and

Send New Qubit Attack

V. C ONCLUSION
We have simulated BB84 protocol of QKD using photonic
simulator OptiSystem. It has been proved from this simulation
that we are able to get the result similar with the theory.
R EFERENCES
[1] A. Buhari, Z. A. Zukarnai, S. K. Subramaniam, H. Zainuddin, and
S. Saharudin, “Bb84 and noise immune quantum key distribution pro-
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International Conference of Electrical, Electronics, Instrumentation and
Biomedical Engineering (ICEEIB2012), p. 30.
[2] M. Elboukhari, M. Azizi, and A. AziziL, “Analysis of the security of
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Its Applications, vol. 2, no. 2, 2010.
[3] F. Gao, S.-J. Qin, F.-Z. Guo, and Q.-Y. Wen, “Dense-coding attack on
three-party quantum key distribution protocols,” Quantum Electronics,
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