Security of device-independent quantum key distribution under sequential attack

Abstract

Device-independent quantum key distribution (DI-QKD) leverages nonlocal correlations to establish cryptographic keys between two honest parties while making minimal assumptions about the underlying systems. The security of DI-QKD is grounded in the validity of quantum theory, with Bell violations ensuring the intrinsic unpredictability of observed statistics, independent of the trustworthiness of the devices. While traditional collective QKD attacks assume that the adversary prepares the shared system, we analyse a scenario where the adversary does not control the source and instead interacts sequentially with the travelling system. In this setting, Eve performs an unsharp measurement that produces effective noise while preserving the observed Bell violation. Although such behaviour is already accounted for in existing DI-QKD security proofs, examining it through an explicit sequential interaction offers a concrete and physically motivated example of how these effective statistics can arise in practice. Our analysis further shows that within a specific parameter regime, this sequential strategy reproduces some features of an optimal collective attack. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2026.