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A Piece of QAICCC: Towards a Countermeasure Against Crosstalk Attacks in Quantum Servers

Yoann Marquer, Domenico Bianculli

TL;DR

This paper tackles security challenges in multi-user quantum servers where inter-circuit crosstalk could enable attacks. It proposes QAICCC, a four-step qubit-allocation pipeline that analyzes platform crosstalk, assigns qubits to users to minimize inter-circuit interference, transpiles circuits accordingly, and then applies existing noise-reduction techniques to further improve reliability. The key contribution is a novel allocation algorithm that maximizes qubit usage while minimizing the largest inter-circuit crosstalk error rate, with connectivity constraints ensuring feasible transpilation. The work aims to enable safer, scalable quantum-server adoption by multiple actors and outlines concrete plans for implementation, integration, and empirical evaluation against existing baselines.

Abstract

Quantum computing, while allowing for processing information exponentially faster than classical computing, requires computations to be delegated to quantum servers, which makes security threats possible. For instance, previous studies demonstrated that crosstalk between attacker and victim's qubits can be exploited to mount security attacks. In this idea paper, we propose the QAICCC approach to allocate qubits between users to minimize inter-circuit crosstalk and, thus, possibilities for attacks, while maximizing qubit usage. Also, combined with existing techniques, QAICCC aims to reduce intra-circuit noise. Thus, QAICCC will support quantum computing adoption by securing the usage of quantum servers by a large number of actors.

A Piece of QAICCC: Towards a Countermeasure Against Crosstalk Attacks in Quantum Servers

TL;DR

This paper tackles security challenges in multi-user quantum servers where inter-circuit crosstalk could enable attacks. It proposes QAICCC, a four-step qubit-allocation pipeline that analyzes platform crosstalk, assigns qubits to users to minimize inter-circuit interference, transpiles circuits accordingly, and then applies existing noise-reduction techniques to further improve reliability. The key contribution is a novel allocation algorithm that maximizes qubit usage while minimizing the largest inter-circuit crosstalk error rate, with connectivity constraints ensuring feasible transpilation. The work aims to enable safer, scalable quantum-server adoption by multiple actors and outlines concrete plans for implementation, integration, and empirical evaluation against existing baselines.

Abstract

Quantum computing, while allowing for processing information exponentially faster than classical computing, requires computations to be delegated to quantum servers, which makes security threats possible. For instance, previous studies demonstrated that crosstalk between attacker and victim's qubits can be exploited to mount security attacks. In this idea paper, we propose the QAICCC approach to allocate qubits between users to minimize inter-circuit crosstalk and, thus, possibilities for attacks, while maximizing qubit usage. Also, combined with existing techniques, QAICCC aims to reduce intra-circuit noise. Thus, QAICCC will support quantum computing adoption by securing the usage of quantum servers by a large number of actors.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 15 sections, 4 figures, 1 algorithm.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. Crosstalk
  4. Noise reduction techniques
  5. Approach
  6. Motivations and goals
  7. Overview
  8. Step 1: Crosstalk analysis
  9. Step 2: Allocation algorithm
  10. Step 3: Transpilation
  11. Step 4: Noise reduction
  12. Application to the Running Example
  13. Related Work
  14. Research Outlook and Conclusions
  15. Auxiliary functions

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: Qubit connectivity of the ibmqx2 platform.
  • Figure 2: Activity diagram of the Qubit Allocation for Inter-Circuit Crosstalk Countermeasure (QAICCC) approach.
  • Figure 3: Safe allocation patterns for ${1}$-${1}$, ${2}$-${1}$, and ${2}$-${2}$ crosstalk: impacting qubits $Q_\rightarrow$ are on the left of an arrow and impacted qubits $Q_\leftarrow$ on the right, each box with plain (resp. dashed) edges represents qubits allocated to a trusted (resp. any) user.
  • Figure 4: Auxiliary functions used in \ref{['algo:allocation']}