Attack on a classical analogue of the Dunjko, Wallden, Kent and Andersson quantum digital signature protocol

Abstract

A quantum digital signature (QDS) protocol is investigated in respect of an attacker who can impersonate other communicating principals in the style of Lowe's attack on the Needham-Schroeder public-key authentication protocol. A man-in-the-middle attack is identified in respect of a classical variant of the protocol and it is suggested that a similar attack would be effective against the QDS protocol. The attack has been confirmed through initial protocol modelling using a automated theorem prover, ProVerif.