Lasers crack commercial quantum encryption

Nature: A team of engineers and physicists has used lasers to crack the encryption keys of two commercial quantum cryptographic systems—and left no trace. Nature's Zeeya Merali explains the technology involved in this latest hack. Although quantum cryptography had been touted as a secure method to send information, hackers have been busy proving that it is not so. Several months ago, the University of Toronto's Feihu Xu, Bing Qi, and Hoi-Kwong Lo also found a way to hack quantum systems. Now, Vadim Makarov at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and his colleagues have published the results of their successful hack in Nature Photonics.