Reliable detection of malware is a fundamental component of cybersecurity in the modern world. Models have to be able to identify new and sophisticated malware strains, even among large and complex datasets, while having accuracy, efficiency, and understandability. Review of previous research, based on direct comparison, of Quantum>Support Vector Machines, Quantum Neural>Networks,and hybrid modeles such-as Quantum Multilayer Perceptron is the basis of the proposed clear and concise QML framework for malware detection. Basic research by Cai et al. on QSVM demonstrates high classification accuracy. In exploration of bases, QNN has passed the trials and indicated the need for improvement due to data re-uploading. Finally, further experiments on QMLP and QCNN researched the relationship between classification accuracy and model training cost. XAI added the level of interpretability and the analysis demonstrated an O(log n) computational leverage, which is the key ingredient that maintains this field. These combinations of research construct the unified framework of the strong classification strength of QSVM, the architecture flexibility of QNN, and the insights from XAI. This leads to a more robust accuracy, explainability, and reliability of existing and future malware detection systems.
Reliable detection of malware is a fundamental component of cybersecurity in the modern world. Models have to be able to identify new and sophisticated malware strains, even among large and complex datasets, while having accuracy, efficiency, and understandability. Review of previous research, based on direct comparison, of Quantum>Support Vector Machines, Quantum Neural>Networks,and hybrid modeles such-as Quantum Multilayer Perceptron is the basis of the proposed clear and concise QML framework for malware detection. Basic research by Cai et al. on QSVM demonstrates high classification accuracy. In exploration of bases, QNN has passed the trials and indicated the need for improvement due to data re-uploading. Finally, further experiments on QMLP and QCNN researched the relationship between classification accuracy and model training cost. XAI added the level of interpretability and the analysis demonstrated an O(log n) computational leverage, which is the key ingredient that maintains this field. These combinations of research construct the unified framework of the strong classification strength of QSVM, the architecture flexibility of QNN, and the insights from XAI. This leads to a more robust accuracy, explainability, and reliability of existing and future malware detection systems.
This study explores the application of quantum machine learning (QML) algorithms to enhance cybersecurity threat detection, particularly in the classification of malware and intrusion detection within high-dimensional datasets. Classical machine learning approaches encounter limitations when dealing with intricate, obfuscated malware patterns and extensive network intrusion data. To address these challenges, we implement and evaluate various QML algorithms, including Quantum Neural Networks (QNN), Quantum Support Vector Machines (QSVM), and hybrid Quantum Convolutional Neural Networks (QCNN) for malware detection tasks. Our experimental analysis utilized two datasets: the Intrusion dataset, comprising 150 samples with 56 memory-based features derived from Volatility framework analysis, and the ObfuscatedMalMem2022 dataset, containing 58,596 samples with 57 features representing benign and malicious software. Remarkably, our QML methods demonstrated superior performance compared to classical approaches, achieving accuracies of 95% for QNN and 94% for QSVM. These quantum-enhanced methods leveraged quantum superposition and entanglement principles to accurately identify complex patterns within highly obfuscated malware samples that were imperceptible to classical methods. To further advance malware analysis, we propose a novel real-time malware analysis framework that incorporates Quantum Feature Extraction using Quantum Fourier Transform, Quantum Feature Maps, and Classification using Variational Quantum Circuits. This system integrates explainable AI methods, including GradCAM++ and ScoreCAM algorithms, to provide interpretable insights into the quantum decision-making processes.
Classical machine learning (CML) has been extensively studied for malware classification. With the emergence of quantum computing, quantum machine learning (QML) presents a paradigm-shifting opportunity to improve malware detection, though its application in this domain remains largely unexplored. In this study, we investigate two hybrid quantumclassical models - a Quantum Multilayer Perceptron (QMLP) and a Quantum Convolutional Neural Network (QCNN), for malware classification. Both models utilize angle embedding to encode malware features into quantum states. QMLP captures complex patterns through full qubit measurement and data reuploading, while QCNN achieves faster training via quantum convolution and pooling layers that reduce active qubits. We evaluate both models on five widely used malware datasets -API-Graph, EMBER-Domain, EMBER-Class, AZ-Domain, and AZ-Class, across binary and multiclass classification tasks. Our results show high accuracy for binary classification95−96%on API-Graph, 91-92% on AZ-Domain, and77%on EMBER-Domain. In multiclass settings, accuracy ranges from 91.6-95.7% on API-Graph, 41.7-93.6% on AZ-Class, and 60.7-88.1% on EMBER-Class. Overall, QMLP outperforms QCNN in complex multiclass tasks, while QCNN offers improved training efficiency at the cost of reduced accuracy.
In cybersecurity, protecting sensitive data from malicious attacks is of paramount importance. Classical machine learning algorithms have shown limitations in this domain due to their inability to handle complex, highly dynamic, and adversarial attack scenarios. Quantum machine learning (QML) algorithms, with their enhanced processing capacity and robustness against such attacks, offer a promising alternative to address these shortcomings. Consequently, QML can significantly improve the detection and mitigation of sophisticated and evolving threats. This study explores the application of QML algorithms, specifically the quantum support vector machine (QSVM) and a hybrid quantum neural network (QNN) and QSVM architecture (QSVM-QNN), on two real-world cybersecurity datasets: APA-DDoS and CIC-IoT2022. Initially, different qubit counts and encoding techniques are investigated to assess the effectiveness of the swap test and UU† methods for inner product calculation, which is later employed in the QSVM algorithm. Subsequently, the performance of the proposed QSVM and QSVM-QNN models is evaluated and compared against classical counterparts across varying numbers of qubits and encoding schemes. The results show that the proposed QSVM model achieved accuracies of 1.000 and 0.985, while the QSVM-QNN model reached accuracies of 0.970 and 1.000, respectively, on the two datasets, demonstrating strong performance and surpassing several classical models. Furthermore, to assess robustness, the proposed algorithms were tested under various noise models, highlighting their capability to provide effective solutions for cybersecurity challenges in realistic quantum noisy environments.
Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) are a cornerstone of modern cybersecurity; however, their performance is increasingly constrained by high-dimensional network traffic and the scalability limitations of classical machine learning approaches. Quantum Machine Learning (QML) has recently emerged as a promising paradigm by leveraging quantum feature spaces and hybrid quantum–classical optimization. In this work, we present a unified and reproducible benchmarking framework for QML-based intrusion detection under realistic Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) constraints. The proposed framework integrates hybrid Quantum Neural Networks (QNNs) and Quantum Support Vector Machines (QSVMs) within a consistent experimental pipeline, enabling a systematic comparison of quantum models, embedding strategies, and dimensionality reduction techniques. Experiments are conducted on the NSL-KDD benchmark dataset for both binary (normal versus attack) and multiclass intrusion detection tasks. Multiple quantum embedding strategies, including angle, amplitude, and Instantaneous Quantum Polynomial (IQP) embeddings, are evaluated in conjunction with PCA-based dimensionality reduction to analyze trade-offs between expressivity, circuit complexity, and computational cost. The proposed models are benchmarked against strong classical baselines under identical preprocessing and evaluation conditions. The results demonstrate that QNN- and QSVM-based IDS models achieve competitive and, in several scenarios, superior performance compared to classical approaches, particularly in multiclass settings characterized by nonlinear and imbalanced data distributions. In addition, we provide an in-depth analysis of scalability limitations, training complexity, and NISQ feasibility, highlighting practical considerations for real-world deployment. To ensure full reproducibility, all implementation details, datasets, and experimental configurations are publicly available at: https://github.com/raidanis/QML-IDS-NSLKDD. These findings position hybrid QML as a promising complementary paradigm for next-generation intrusion detection systems, particularly in low-dimensional and high-complexity feature spaces.
With the potential for quantum computing to completely transform cybersecurity, quantum machine learning is becoming a ground-breaking technology. Cyber-attacks have been successfully countered by traditional network defense systems, which mostly use conventional machine learning (ML) techniques. However, the growing complexity of assaults and the exponential expansion of network data reveal the shortcomings of traditional methods, especially with regard to speed and scalability. By utilizing quantum algorithms like Quantum Support Vector Machines (QSVM), Quantum Neural Networks (QNN), and Variational Quantum Circuits (VQC), Quantum Machine Learning (QML) presents a viable substitute. These methods are especially well-suited for real-time network defense scenarios since they show the capacity to handle high-dimensional data, identify complex patterns, and increase computational efficiency. In this research, the effectiveness of QML techniques in network defense is thoroughly examined and contrasted with that of traditional machine learning techniques. The study emphasizes how QML may surpass conventional models in terms of accuracy, scalability, and resilience against sophisticated threats by concentrating on use cases like intrusion detection, malware analysis, and anomaly detection. The necessity for hybrid quantum-classical models and the present constraints of quantum hardware are among the difficulties that are discussed in the study. This study highlights the revolutionary potential of QML in strengthening network defense mechanisms and identifies crucial areas for further research, paving the road for a secure digital future by combining theoretical ideas with experimental discoveries.
The increasing sophistication of malware poses significant challenges to modern machine learning (ML) based detection systems. This has motivated growing interest in quantum and hybrid quantum-classical ML models as alternatives to improve representational efficiency and robustness. However, high sensitivity to quantum noise and limited scalability raises question on the deployment of Quantum Machine Learning (QML) models on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices. To address these challenges, we propose QSLP (Quantum model with Secure Latent-space and Pixel space), a unified hybrid quantum-classical architecture for image-based malware detection that integrates robustness at both latent-space and pixel-space. QSLP integrates a novel defense mechanism, i.e., Quantum Noise Injection Class Center Perturbation (QNI-CCP) to add sensitivity-weighted perturbations into the latent space prior to the quantum circuit execution. We investigate the quantum advantage, latent-space robustness, and adversarial resilience of QSLP. Our experiments with different datasets show that integrating QNI-CCP into classical neural network (CNN) and quantum neural network (QNN) pipelines improves both generalization performance and adversarial robustness at the latent space level. Complementing this latent-space defense, adversarial training in QSLP further strengthens the model against pixel-level perturbations.