Information-theoretic limits on undetectable parameter-estimation attacks in continuous-variable quantum key distribution
Abstract
We formalize side-channel detection in Gaussian-modulated continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) as a certificate-forgery hypothesis test and identify its detectability with an information-theoretic rate. Relative to a set of trusted, real-time-monitored observables, the forgery- detectability rate of a benign-statistics certificate is the missed-detection Stein exponent. We prove a dichotomy: is monotone and strictly positive in the leaked Holevo information when the shot- noise unit is trusted, and identically zero otherwise, recovering local- oscillator and calibration attacks as the degenerate case. Monotonicity yields a certificate reusability rate bounding the Holevo leakage compatible with an undetected certificate over estimation rounds, via the non- asymptotic bound whose near-threshold expansion matches the Gaussian confidence-interval scaling of standard finite-size analyses. We then give a composable finite-size key- length statement under collective Gaussian attacks, whose worst-case Holevo term is the reusability rate and whose parameter-estimation failure probability is bounded by the Stein exponent at every block length. Both results are unconditional in the trusted-correlation model, where strict monotonicity of the Holevo leakage in the excess noise follows from a noise-injection argument; for general they hold under an explicit no-spurious-local-minima condition on the divergence landscape, verifiable by low-dimensional inspection. Convexity of the rate further assumes a numerically supported concavity of the Holevo bound, the sole numerical ingredient; proof status is delimited throughout.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.24855,
title = {Information-theoretic limits on undetectable parameter-estimation attacks in continuous-variable quantum key distribution},
author = {Agung Trisetyarso and Lenny Putri Yulianti and Kridanto Surendro},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.24855},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
12 pages, 11 figures