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arXiv:2402.02753 · Advanced Quantum Technologies

Crosstalk Attacks and Defence in a Shared Quantum Computing Environment

Benjamin Harper, Behnam Tonekaboni, Bahar Goldozian, Martin E. Sevior, Muhammad Usman

Published Aug 3, 2025• 17 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract Quantum computing has the potential to provide solutions to problems that are intractable on classical computers, but the accuracy of the current generation of quantum computers suffer from the impact of noise or errors such as leakage, crosstalk, dephasing, and amplitude damping among others. As the access to quantum computers is almost exclusively in a shared environment through cloud‐based services, it is possible that an adversary can exploit crosstalk noise to disrupt quantum computations on nearby qubits, even carefully designing quantum circuits to purposely lead to wrong answers. In this study, the extent and characteristics of crosstalk noise are studied through tomography conducted on IBM Quantum computers, leading to an enhanced crosstalk simulation model. These results indicate that crosstalk noise is a significant source of errors on IBM quantum hardware, making crosstalk based attack a viable threat to quantum computing in a shared environment. Based on the crosstalk simulator benchmarked against IBM hardware, the impact of crosstalk attacks and develop strategies are assessed for mitigating crosstalk effects. Through a systematic set of simulations, the effectiveness of three crosstalk attack mitigation strategies is assessed, namely circuit separation, qubit allocation optimization via reinforcement learning, and the use of spectator qubits, and show that they all overcome crosstalk attack risk with varying degrees of success and help to secure quantum computing in a shared platform.

DOI
10.1002/qute.202500009

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Abstract Quantum computing has the potential to provide solutions to problems that are intractable on classical computers, but the accuracy of the current generation of quantum computers suffer from the impact of noise or errors such as leakage, crosstalk, dephasing, and amplitude damping among others. As the access to quantum computers is almost exclusively in a shared environment through cloud‐based services, it is possible that an adversary can exploit crosstalk noise to disrupt quantum computations on nearby qubits, even carefully designing quantum circuits to purposely lead to wrong answers. In this study, the extent and characteristics of crosstalk noise are studied through tomography conducted on IBM Quantum computers, leading to an enhanced crosstalk simulation model. These results indicate that crosstalk noise is a significant source of errors on IBM quantum hardware, making crosstalk based attack a viable threat to quantum computing in a shared environment. Based on the crosstalk simulator benchmarked against IBM hardware, the impact of crosstalk attacks and develop strategies are assessed for mitigating crosstalk effects. Through a systematic set of simulations, the effectiveness of three crosstalk attack mitigation strategies is assessed, namely circuit separation, qubit allocation optimization via reinforcement learning, and the use of spectator qubits, and show that they all overcome crosstalk attack risk with varying degrees of success and help to secure quantum computing in a shared platform.
Hardware crosstalk in multi-tenant superconducting quantum computers poses a severe security threat, allowing adversaries to induce targeted errors across tenant boundaries by injecting carefully engineered pulses. We present a simulation-based study of active crosstalk attacks at the pulse level, analyzing how adversarial control of pulse timing, shape, amplitude, and coupling can disrupt a victim's computation. Our framework models the time-dependent dynamics of a three-qubit system in the rotating frame, capturing both always-on couplings and injected drive pulses. We examine two attack strategies: attacker-first (pulse before victim operation) and victim-first (pulse after), and systematically identify the pulse and coupling configurations that cause the largest logical errors. Protocol-level experiments on quantum coin flip and XOR classification circuits show that some protocols are highly vulnerable to these attacks, while others remain robust. Based on these findings, we discuss practical methods for detection and mitigation to improve security in quantum cloud platforms.
The noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers suffer from unwanted coupling across qubits referred to as crosstalk. Existing literature largely ignores the crosstalk effects which can introduce significant error in circuit optimization. In this work, we present a crosstalk modeling analysis framework for near-term quantum computers after extracting the error-rates experimentally. Our analysis reveals that crosstalk can be of the same order of gate error which is considered a dominant error in NISQ devices. We also propose adversarial fault injection using crosstalk in a multiprogramming environment where the victim and the adversary share the same quantum hardware. Our simulation and experimental results from IBM quantum computers demonstrated that the adversary can inject fault and launch a Denial-of-Service attack. Finally, we propose system- and device-level countermeasures.
Quantum computing, while allowing for processing information exponentially faster than classical computing, is far from becoming a personal commodity. Indeed, because of cost and needs for ultra-cold temperature, shielded environment, and complex wiring for control, access to quantum computers is likely to be provided remotely, through quantum servers. Sharing quantum hardware between multiple users enables the efficient use of quantum resources, but makes some 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 work, we address the problem of securing user circuits submitted to quantum servers. We propose the Qubit Allocation for Inter-Circuit Crosstalk Countermeasure (QAICCC), which aims to maximize qubit usage, reduce inter-circuit crosstalk as well as intra-circuit noise. QAICCC performs (1) a crosstalk analysis of the targeted quantum processor to determine qubits involved in crosstalk with the largest intensity; (2) the allocation of qubits in the safest possible way; and (3) the application of existing techniques to further reduce crosstalk between circuits and noise in user circuits. The main contribution is the allocation algorithm, which aims to maximize qubit usage (including making unused qubits available for future usage) while minimizing the largest inter-circuit crosstalk error rate. Thus, QAICCC will support quantum computing adoption by securing the usage of quantum servers by a large number of actors.
As quantum computing rapidly advances, its nearterm applications are becoming increasingly evident.However, the high cost and under-utilization of quantum resources are prompting a shift from single-user to multi-user access models.In a multi-tenant environment, where multiple users share one quantum computer, protecting user confidentiality becomes crucial.The varied uses of quantum computers increase the risk that sensitive data encoded by one user could be compromised by others, rendering the protection of data integrity and confidentiality essential.In the evolving quantum computing landscape, it is imperative to study these security challenges within the scope of realistic threat model assumptions, wherein an adversarial user can mount practical attacks without relying on any heightened privileges afforded by physical access to a quantum computer or rogue cloud services.In this paper, we demonstrate the potential of crosstalk as an attack vector for the first time on a Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) machine, that an adversarial user can exploit within a multi-tenant quantum computing model.The proposed side-channel attack is conducted with minimal and realistic adversarial privileges, with the overarching aim of uncovering the quantum algorithm being executed by a victim.Crosstalk signatures are used to estimate the presence of CNOT gates in the victim circuit, and subsequently, this information is encoded and classified by a graph-based learning model to identify the victim quantum algorithm.When evaluated on up to 336 benchmark circuits, our attack framework is found to be able to unveil the victim's quantum algorithm with up to 85.7% accuracy.
Abstract With the increasing demand for quantum hardware, shared and multi-tenant environments have been proposed to optimize resource utilization. However, the multi-tenancy paradigm in quantum computing inherently introduces security threats. This paper examines crosstalk-mediated attacks targeting three-qubit Grover’s search algorithm and explores two fundamental mitigation strategies: gate-based dynamical decoupling and the use of a buffer qubit. We evaluate the effectiveness of each method individually and in combination, finding that while both strategies offer some level of attack mitigation, their combined application yields the most significant performance improvement. Beyond security vulnerabilities, our work also has implications for unintentional circuit interference that can occur when multiple quantum circuits are executed in close proximity.
Current advancements in technology have focused the attention of the quantum computing community toward exploring the potential of near-term devices whose computing power surpasses that of classical computers in practical applications. An unresolved central question revolves around whether the inherent noise in these devices can be overcome or whether any potential quantum advantage would be limited. There is no doubt that crosstalk is one of the main sources of noise in noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) systems, and it poses a fundamental challenge to hardware designs. Crosstalk between parallel instructions can corrupt quantum states and cause incorrect program execution. In this study, we present a necessary analysis of the crosstalk error effect on NISQ devices. Our approach is extremely straightforward and practical to estimate the crosstalk error of various multi-qubit devices. In particular, we combine the randomized benchmarking (RB) and simultaneous randomized benchmarking (SRB) protocol to estimate the crosstalk error from the correlation controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate. We demonstrate this protocol experimentally on 5-, 7-, \& 16-qubit devices. Our results demonstrate the crosstalk error model of three different IBM quantum devices over the experimental week and compare the error variation against the machine, number of qubits, quantum volume, processor, and topology. We then confirm the improvement in the circuit fidelity on different benchmarks by up to 3.06x via inserting an instruction barrier, as compared with an IBM quantum noisy device which offers near-optimal crosstalk mitigation in practice. Finally, we discuss the current system limitation, its tradeoff on fidelity and depth, noise beyond the NISQ system, and mitigation opportunities to ensure that the quantum operation can perform its quantum magic undisturbed.