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ObfusQate: Unveiling the First Quantum Program Obfuscation Framework

Nikhil Bartake, See Toh Zi Jie, Carmen Wong Jiawen, Declan Fong Yi Ren, Michael Kasper, Vivek Balachandran

Published Oct 13, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We introduce ObfusQate, a novel framework that performs software obfuscation using quantum primitives to enhance the security of both classical and quantum programs. ObfusQate implements eight obfuscation techniques categorized into quantum circuit-level and code-level transformations. Circuit-level obfuscation leverages quantum gates, identity operations, and unitary transformations to construct non-intuitive circuits that resist reverse engineering. Code-level obfuscation employs quantum-based opaque predicates to obscure control flow, making execution paths unpredictable. We evaluate the effectiveness of ObfusQate using three benchmark quantum algorithms: Bernstein-Vazirani, Shor’s, and QAOA. Experiments show that the framework incurs tunable polynomial overhead in both time and space, while preserving functional correctness. Additionally, we demonstrate an offensive use case by embedding a keylogger into Shor’s algorithm. Large language models (GPT-4o, GPT-o3-mini, and Grok-3) successfully identified the payload in the unobfuscated version, but failed when it was obfuscated using ObfusQate. To our knowledge, ObfusQate is the first automated system for quantum software obfuscation. It provides a foundation for secure deployment of quantum software in adversarial and shared environments.

DOI
10.1145/3733817.3762700

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We introduce ObfusQate, a novel framework that performs software obfuscation using quantum primitives to enhance the security of both classical and quantum programs. ObfusQate implements eight obfuscation techniques categorized into quantum circuit-level and code-level transformations. Circuit-level obfuscation leverages quantum gates, identity operations, and unitary transformations to construct non-intuitive circuits that resist reverse engineering. Code-level obfuscation employs quantum-based opaque predicates to obscure control flow, making execution paths unpredictable. We evaluate the effectiveness of ObfusQate using three benchmark quantum algorithms: Bernstein-Vazirani, Shor’s, and QAOA. Experiments show that the framework incurs tunable polynomial overhead in both time and space, while preserving functional correctness. Additionally, we demonstrate an offensive use case by embedding a keylogger into Shor’s algorithm. Large language models (GPT-4o, GPT-o3-mini, and Grok-3) successfully identified the payload in the unobfuscated version, but failed when it was obfuscated using ObfusQate. To our knowledge, ObfusQate is the first automated system for quantum software obfuscation. It provides a foundation for secure deployment of quantum software in adversarial and shared environments.
This paper introduces ObfusQate, a novel tool that conducts obfuscations using quantum primitives to enhance the security of both classical and quantum programs. We have designed and implemented two primary categories of obfuscations: quantum circuit level obfuscation and code level obfuscation, encompassing a total of eight distinct methods. Quantum circuit-level obfuscation leverages on quantum gates and circuits, utilizing strategies such as quantum gate hiding and identity matrices to construct complex, non-intuitive circuits that effectively obscure core functionalities and resist reverse engineering, making the underlying code difficult to interpret. Meanwhile, code-level obfuscation manipulates the logical sequence of program operations through quantum-based opaque predicates, obfuscating execution paths and rendering program behavior more unpredictable and challenging to analyze. Additionally, ObfusQate can be used to obfuscate malicious code segments, making them harder to detect and analyze. These advancements establish a foundational framework for further exploration into the potential and limitations of quantum-based obfuscation techniques, positioning ObfusQate as a valuable tool for future developers to enhance code security in the evolving landscape of software development. To the best of our knowledge, ObfusQate represents the pioneering work in developing an automated framework for implementing obfuscations leveraging quantum primitives. Security evaluations show that obfuscations by ObfusQate maintain code behavior with polynomial overheads in space and time complexities. We have also demonstrated an offensive use case by embedding a keylogger into Shor's algorithm and obfuscating it using ObfusQate. Our results show that current Large language models like GPT 4o, GPT o3 mini and Grok 3 were not able to identify the malicious keylogger after obfuscation.
Quantum circuit obfuscation is becoming increasingly important to prevent theft and reverse engineering of quantum algorithms. As quantum computing advances, the need to protect the intellectual property contained in quantum circuits continues to grow. Existing methods often provide limited defense against structural and statistical analysis or introduce considerable overhead. In this paper, we propose a novel quantum obfuscation method that uses randomized U3 transformations to conceal circuit structure while preserving functionality. We implement and assess our approach on QASM circuits using Qiskit AER, achieving over 93\% semantic accuracy with minimal runtime overhead. The method demonstrates strong resistance to reverse engineering and structural inference, making it a practical and effective approach for quantum software protection.
Quantum computing leverages quantum mechanics to achieve computational advantages over classical hardware, but the use of third-party quantum compilers in the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era introduces risks of intellectual property (IP) exposure. We address this by proposing a novel obfuscation technique that protects proprietary quantum circuits by inserting additional quantum gates prior to compilation. These gates corrupt the measurement outcomes, which are later corrected through a lightweight classical post-processing step based on the inserted gate structure. Unlike prior methods that rely on complex quantum reversals, barriers, or physical-to-virtual qubit mapping, our approach achieves obfuscation using compiler-agnostic classical correction. We evaluate the technique across five benchmark quantum algorithms—Shor’s, QAOA, Bernstein-Vazirani, Grover’s, and HHL—using IBM’s Qiskit framework. The results demonstrate high Total Variation Distance (above 0.5) and consistently negative Degree of Functional Corruption (DFC), confirming both statistical and functional obfuscation. This shows that our method is a practical and effective solution for the security of quantum circuit designs in untrusted compilation flows.
Quantum circuit obfuscation is becoming increasingly impor-tant to prevent theft and reverse engineering of quantum algorithms. As quantum computing advances, the need to protect the intellectual property contained in quantum circuits continues to grow. Existing methods often provide limited defense against structural and statistical analysis or introduce considerable overhead. In this paper, we propose a novel quantum obfuscation method that uses randomized U3 transformations to conceal circuit structure while preserving functionality. We implement and assess our approach on QASM circuits using Qiskit AER, achieving over 93% semantic accuracy with minimal runtime overhead. The method demonstrates strong resistance to reverse engineering and struc-tural inference, making it a practical and effective approach for quantum software protection.
Program obfuscation aims to conceal a computer program's internal structure while preserving its functionality. A central open problem is whether an obfuscation scheme for arbitrary quantum circuits exists. Despite several efforts toward this goal, prior works have succeeded only in obfuscating quantum circuits that implement either pseudo-deterministic functions or unitary transformations. Although unitary transformations already include a broad class of quantum computations, many important quantum tasks, such as state preparation, quantum sampling, and quantum error correction, go beyond unitaries and are described by general completely positive trace-preserving (CPTP) maps. In this work, we construct the first quantum ideal obfuscation scheme for arbitrary quantum circuits that support quantum inputs and outputs in the classical oracle model assuming post-quantum one-way functions, thereby resolving an open problem raised in Bartusek et al. (STOC 2023), Bartusek, Brakerski, and Vaikuntanathan (STOC 2024), and Huang and Tang (FOCS 2025). At the core of our construction lies a novel primitive that we introduce, called the subspace-preserving strong pseudorandom unitary (spsPRU). An spsPRU is a family of efficient unitaries that fix every vector in a given linear subspace SSS, while acting as a Haar random unitary on its orthogonal complement S⊥S^\perpS⊥ under both forward and inverse oracle queries. Furthermore, by instantiating the classical oracle model with the ideal obfuscation scheme for classical circuits proposed by Jain et al. (CRYPTO 2023) and later enhanced by Bartusek et al. (CRYPTO 2026), our obfuscation scheme can also be realized in the quantumly accessible pseudorandom oracle model.
Program obfuscation aims to hide the inner workings of a program while preserving its functionality. In the quantum setting, recent works have obtained obfuscation schemes for specialized classes of quantum circuits. For instance, Bartusek, Brakerski, and Vaikuntanathan (STOC 2024) constructed a quantum state obfuscation scheme, which supports the obfuscation of quantum programs represented as quantum states for pseudo-deterministic quantum programs with classical inputs and outputs in the classical oracle model. In this work, we improve upon existing results by constructing the first quantum state obfuscation scheme for unitary (or approximately unitary) quantum programs supporting quantum inputs and outputs in the classical oracle model. At the core of our obfuscation scheme are two novel ingredients: a functional quantum authentication scheme that allows key holders to learn specific functions of the authenticated quantum state with simulationbased security, and a compiler that represents an arbitrary quantum circuit as a projective linear-plus-measurement quantum program described by a sequence of non-adaptive Clifford gates interleaved with adaptive and compatible measurements.