Security News > 2021 > June > One step closer to quantum-secure conference calls

The world is one step closer to ultimately secure conference calls, thanks to a collaboration between Quantum Communications Hub researchers and their German colleagues, enabling a quantum-secure conversation to take place between four parties simultaneously.

This advance in quantum secured communications could lead to conference calls with inherent unhackable security measures, underpinned by the principles of quantum physics.

Senior author, Professor Alessandro Fedrizzi, who led the team at Heriot-Watt, said: "We've long known that quantum entanglement, which Albert Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance' can be used for distributing secure keys. Our work is the first example where this was achieved via 'spooky action' between multiple users at the same time - something that a future quantum internet will be able to exploit."

A mature quantum technology called Quantum Key Distribution, deployed in this demonstration in a network scenario for the first time, harnesses the properties of quantum physics to facilitate guaranteed secure distribution of cryptographic keys.

The system demonstrated by the team here utilises a key property of quantum physics, entanglement, which is the property of quantum physics that gives correlations - stronger than any with which we are familiar in everyday life - between two or more quantum systems, even when these are separated by large distances.

Entanglement-based quantum networks are just one part of a large programme of work that the Quantum Communications Hub is undertaking to deliver future quantum secured networks.

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