Cloud-based quantum computingQuantum Computing (QC) introduces significant security and privacy risks to users’ intellectual property, including both program code and input data. In the absence of dedicated protections, quantum circuits submitted to remote services may be accessible to the cloud provider or compromised by malicious insiders. Furthermore, data embedded in these circuits remains susceptible to leakage during execution. This work proposes architectural and hardware enhancements for contemporary superconducting-qubit quantum computers to mitigate such threats. Drawing inspiration from classical Trusted Execution EnvironmentsTrusted Execution Environments (TEE) (TEEs), we define Quantum Trusted Execution EnvironmentsTrusted Execution Environments (TEE) (QTEEs): trusted hardware mechanisms designed to conceal or obfuscate quantum programs in cloud settings. We present two concrete instantiations, SoteriaQ and CASQUE, detailing their hardware support and required system software.
Cloud-based quantum computingQuantum Computing (QC) introduces significant security and privacy risks to users’ intellectual property, including both program code and input data. In the absence of dedicated protections, quantum circuits submitted to remote services may be accessible to the cloud provider or compromised by malicious insiders. Furthermore, data embedded in these circuits remains susceptible to leakage during execution. This work proposes architectural and hardware enhancements for contemporary superconducting-qubit quantum computers to mitigate such threats. Drawing inspiration from classical Trusted Execution EnvironmentsTrusted Execution Environments (TEE) (TEEs), we define Quantum Trusted Execution EnvironmentsTrusted Execution Environments (TEE) (QTEEs): trusted hardware mechanisms designed to conceal or obfuscate quantum programs in cloud settings. We present two concrete instantiations, SoteriaQ and CASQUE, detailing their hardware support and required system software.
The cloud-based environments in which today's and future quantum computers will operate raise concerns about the security and privacy of user's intellectual property, whether code, or data, or both. Without dedicated security protections, quantum circuits submitted to cloud-based quantum computer providers could be accessed by the cloud provider, or malicious insiders working in the cloud provider's data centers. Furthermore, data embedded in these circuits can similarly be accessed as it is encoded using quantum gates inside the circuit. This study presents various hardware and architecture modifications that could be deployed in today's quantum computers, based on superconducting qubits, to protect both the code and data from potentially untrusted quantum computer providers or malicious insiders. Motivated by existing Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) in classical computers, this study introduces the notion of Quantum Trusted Execution Environments (QTEEs) which leverage trusted hardware to hide or obfuscate quantum circuits executing on a remote, cloud-based quantum computer. This study presents multiple, different approaches to design of QTEEs and considers both hardware and architecture, as well as system software and operating system support necessary for realization of QTEEs. Overall, this study presents three hardware architectures, namely, QC-TEE, SoteriaQ, and CASQUE, that have been designed to protect users' circuits and data from potential threats originating from both malicious quantum computer cloud providers or insider attackers. This study further outlines a roadmap for other possible QTEEs that can be developed in the future, to account for different threat models or to support different types of quantum computer architectures.
With the growing reliance on cloud-based quantum computing, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of quantum computations is paramount. Quantum Trusted Execution Environments (QTEEs) have been proposed to protect users' quantum circuits when they are submitted to remote cloud-based quantum computers. However, deployment of QTEEs necessitates a Quantum Operating Systems (QOS) that can support QTEEs hardware and operation. This work introduces the first architecture for a QOS to support and enable essential steps required for secure quantum task execution on cloud platforms.
The cloud-based environments in which today's and future quantum computers will operate, raise concerns about the security and privacy of user's intellectual property. Quantum circuits submitted to cloud-based quantum computer providers represent sensitive or proprietary algorithms developed by users that need protection. Further, input data is hard-coded into the circuits, and leakage of the circuits can expose users' data. To help protect users' circuits and data from possibly malicious quantum computer cloud providers, this work presented the first hardware architecture for a trusted execution environment for quantum computers. To protect the user's circuits and data, the quantum computer control pulses are obfuscated with decoy control pulses. While digital data can be encrypted, analog control pulses cannot and this paper proposed the novel decoy pulse approach to obfuscate the analog control pulses. The proposed decoy pulses can easily be added to the software by users. Meanwhile, the hardware components of the architecture proposed in this paper take care of eliminating, i.e. attenuating, the decoy pulses inside the superconducting quantum computer's dilution refrigerator before they reach the qubits. The hardware architecture also contains tamper-resistant features to protect the trusted hardware and users' information. The work leverages a new metric of variational distance to analyze the impact and scalability of hardware protection. The variational distance of the circuits protected with our scheme, compared to unprotected circuits, is in the range of only 0.16 to 0.26. This work demonstrates that protection from possibly malicious cloud providers is feasible and all the hardware components needed for the proposed architecture are available today.
We present the first architecture for a trusted execution environment for quantum computers. In the architecture, to protect the user's circuits, they are obfuscated with decoy control pulses added during circuit transpilation by the user. The decoy pulses are removed, i.e. attenuated, by the trusted hardware inside the superconducting quantum computer's fridge before they reach the qubits. This preliminary work demonstrates that protection from possibly malicious cloud providers is feasible with minimal hardware cost.
Quantum computing (QC) is an emerging paradigm with the potential to transform numerous application domains by addressing classically intractable problems. However, its growing presence in cyberspace has introduced new security and privacy challenges. Similar to classical computing systems, the QC stack including software and hardware relies extensively on third parties, many of which are emerging and trust-seeking or less-trusted. This stack often contains sensitive intellectual property (IP) that demands protection. Unique features of quantum systems can enable classical-style attacks: for instance, crosstalk in multitenant settings can facilitate fault-injection attacks, while malicious calibration services can misreport error rates or miscalibrate qubits to induce denial-of-service (DoS) conditions. Given the high cost and limited availability of likely trustworthy quantum hardware, users may be enticed to explore emerging and trust-seeking but cheaper and readily available quantum hardware, which can enable the stealth of IP and tampering of quantum programs and/or computation outcomes. Similarly, emerging compilation services may compromise circuit confidentiality or insert Trojans. Despite the strategic significance of QC and its potential to process sensitive information, its security and privacy concerns remain underexplored. This article presents a comprehensive overview of QC fundamentals, key vulnerabilities, recent attack vectors, and corresponding defenses, and concludes with directions for future research to strengthen the quantum security community.
There is a steady growth in research and demand for real quan- tum hardware in the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era of quantum computing. This prompts many third-party cloud providers to set up quantum hardware as a service that includes a wide range of qubit technologies and architectures to maximize performance at minimal cost. Quantum circuits submitted to these services are the fruits of the efforts invested by the designers. But these third-party cloud compilers (who offer more efficient alter- natives to established compilers) can make user circuits/programs vulnerable to various security breaches. Communication channels for transmitting quantum information also need to be developed such that there is end to end encryption. There is little to no visibil- ity on where the execution of the circuit is actually taking place. The success of the user program is highly reliant on the backend that was used for execution. Besides, the third-party provider and/or tools (e.g., hardware mapper and allocator) may be untrustworthy and execute the quantum circuits on less efficient and more error- prone hardware to conserve resources and maximize profit. These vulnerabilities in the quantum system could leak confidential data, cause loss of intellectual property rights of designers, cause loss of access control, corrupt user programs et cetera. Thus, it is imper- ative to identify these security vulnerabilities and create defense strategies to protect quantum programs, thus helping to maintain the integrity of quantum information across the software stack. My thesis aims to help address these vulnerabilities and opacities and address them.