Evaluating Security Properties in the Execution of Quantum Circuits

2025-09-03

AI Summary

Executing quantum circuits on untrusted quantum cloud platforms in the NISQ era poses critical security risks—particularly concerning confidentiality and integrity—due to hardware-level vulnerabilities and noise-induced deviations. Method: This paper proposes the first security property quantification framework tailored for medium-scale noisy quantum devices. It integrates quantum program static analysis, hardware-aware noise modeling, and lightweight security verification techniques, employing heuristic strategies to assess information leakage and computational tampering risks without trusting the underlying hardware. Contribution/Results: The framework delivers computationally tractable and interpretable security evaluations. Experimental validation on real NISQ devices demonstrates its effectiveness in identifying security risks for representative quantum algorithms—including VQE and QAOA—thereby significantly enhancing the practicality and systematic rigor of security assessment in quantum cloud computing scenarios.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Quantum Machine Learning
• Natural Language Processing: Safety and Robustness
• Application Domains: Security

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web

Abstract

Quantum computing is a disruptive technology that is expected to offer significant advantages in many critical fields (e.g. drug discovery and cryptography). The security of information processed by such machines is therefore paramount. Currently, modest Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices are available. The goal of this work is to identify a practical, heuristic methodology to evaluate security properties, such as secrecy and integrity, while using quantum processors owned by potentially untrustworthy providers.

Problem

• Evaluating security properties in quantum circuit execution
• Assessing secrecy and integrity on untrusted quantum processors
• Developing heuristic methodology for NISQ device security

Innovation

• Heuristic methodology for security evaluation
• Assessing secrecy and integrity properties
• Untrusted quantum processor provider context