Quantum Watermarking (QWM) is an emerging field that combines quantum information theory with digital watermarking techniques to enhance the security of digital content. By leveraging quantum properties such as superposition, entanglement, and the no-cloning theorem, QWM provides robust protection against unauthorised access, tampering, and duplication—offering a significant advantage over classical methods. As the volume and value of digital data grow, the need for advanced intellectual property protection becomes increasingly vital, making QWM a promising approach to next-generation data security. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the theoretical foundations of QWM, its core principles, and various classification methods based on quantum states, embedding techniques, and application domains such as authentication, copyright protection, and tamper detection. It also explores the mathematical models underlying QWM, including quantum state representations and error correction protocols, along with recent advances in experimental validations. Despite its potential, QWM faces challenges such as noise sensitivity, scalability limitations, and high computational resource requirements. Issues related to secure key management and implementation vulnerabilities also remain. Nevertheless, this review aims to serve as a foundational reference for researchers and practitioners, highlighting the promise of QWM in reshaping digital content security, particularly in sensitive domains like digital forensics and healthcare.
Quantum Watermarking (QWM) is an emerging field that combines quantum information theory with digital watermarking techniques to enhance the security of digital content. By leveraging quantum properties such as superposition, entanglement, and the no-cloning theorem, QWM provides robust protection against unauthorised access, tampering, and duplication—offering a significant advantage over classical methods. As the volume and value of digital data grow, the need for advanced intellectual property protection becomes increasingly vital, making QWM a promising approach to next-generation data security. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the theoretical foundations of QWM, its core principles, and various classification methods based on quantum states, embedding techniques, and application domains such as authentication, copyright protection, and tamper detection. It also explores the mathematical models underlying QWM, including quantum state representations and error correction protocols, along with recent advances in experimental validations. Despite its potential, QWM faces challenges such as noise sensitivity, scalability limitations, and high computational resource requirements. Issues related to secure key management and implementation vulnerabilities also remain. Nevertheless, this review aims to serve as a foundational reference for researchers and practitioners, highlighting the promise of QWM in reshaping digital content security, particularly in sensitive domains like digital forensics and healthcare.
Protecting the ownership of pictures and the integrity of copyright law is now of paramount importance with the explosion in digital content, especially content that is vulnerable to manipulation and distribution without the copyright owner's permission. This research work combines post-quantum cryptography, Artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing aspects to introduce ground breaking quantum intelligent and secure architecture for image watermarking. The proposed system is using quantum transform methods for inserting undetectable and tamper- proof quantum watermarks into digital images. AI models are then applied to the images for change detection and immediate verification of the authenticity of the watermark. Therefore, quantum key distribution (QKD), lattice-based post-quantum cryptography and other quantum safe encryption schemes are employed to cryptographically secure the metadata of watermark for good cryptographic security. This hybrid approach has been shown to enhance the security against both classical and quantum attacks. NFT authentication, secure cloud storage of pictures, and protection for copyright in digital media are examples of some potential applications. Simulation and experimental results show increased strength of the watermark, accuracy of message about unauthorized insertion of the watermark, and enhanced cryptographic security with respect to all other methods. The article demonstrates how AI can be aligned with quantum computing in order to secure audio-visual content in post-quantum cyber security.
The chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the evolving field of quantum steganography, highlighting its potential impact on information security in the age of quantum computing. Steganography, rooted in ancient practices, has traditionally concealed data within classical computing systems, but the emergence of quantum computing poses new challenges. Quantum steganography adapts classical principles to leverage the unique properties of quantum mechanics, employing quantum bits (qubits), superposition, and entanglement for secure data concealment. The abstract delves into the conceptual framework of a quantum steganography algorithm, emphasizing its complexity and the integration of quantum key distribution for enhanced security. The applications span secure communication, medical records, financial transactions, military defense, intellectual property protection, and more. Despite promising prospects, quantum steganography faces challenges such as quantum state fragility and hardware constraints, requiring ongoing research to unlock its full potential in safeguarding sensitive information.
Abstract The crazy, unconscious use of the Internet, and the increase in cybercrime and hacking, which resulted in the loss of a large number of sensitive data, the risk of piracy, etc. were the motivation for protecting rights, securing and hiding essential information such as images, audio, etc. Watermarking was a popular security, copyright and privacy approach and one of the problems in modern quantum digital computing that produced more powerful quantum protection techniques than the classical one that used classical techniques such as digital wavelet transformation and Hungarian algorithms. Recent advances in quantum image representation and processing help to manipulate data hidden. This paper proposes a new watermark technique in which a color watermark image is hidden within another color-carrying image after transformation into the quantum domain using the recently completed quantum color image representation technique. Finally, a comparison is made between the proposed method and the most recent watermarking techniques is establish in terms of PSNR (peak signal-to-noise ratio), which shows the high precision of the proposed technique and improves the imperceptibility compared to the related schemes.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing poses a significant threat to classical cryptographic systems that rely on the computational hardness of mathematical problems such as integer factorization and discrete logarithm problems. In this context, quantum cryptography has emerged as a promising paradigm for secure communication based on the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics rather than on computational assumptions. This paper presents a comprehensive review of quantum cryptography, with a particular focus on Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), the most mature application. The study discusses the theoretical foundations of quantum security, including superposition, entanglement, and the No-cloning theorem, which collectively enable eavesdropping detection and guarantee information-theoretic security. Furthermore, the review examines major QKD protocols, such as BB84 and E91, as well as their advanced variants designed to address practical vulnerabilities and enhance performance. Recent progress in real-world implementations, including fiber-optic networks, free-space communication, and satellite-based systems such as the Micius satellite, is also analyzed. In addition, the paper highlights critical challenges related to scalability, hardware limitations, and security loopholes arising from imperfect devices. Finally, emerging research directions, including hybrid cryptographic frameworks that integrate quantum and post-quantum approaches, are discussed to provide insights into the future of secure communication. This review aims to provide a structured, up-to-date understanding of quantum cryptography, bridging the gap between theoretical developments and practical implementations, and emphasizing its crucial role in shaping next-generation cybersecurity systems.
Quantum image encryption (QIE) has emerged as a promising solution for securing digital data in an era dominated by rapid advancements in quantum computing and increasing cyber threats. Traditional cryptographic techniques, which rely on classical encryption methods, are vulnerable to the computational power of quantum algorithms, posing significant challenges for maintaining data privacy and integrity. This survey presents a thorough review of quantum encryption techniques, highlighting both their limitations and advantages, with a particular emphasis on their ability to ensure secure visual data transmission in the post-quantum era. Additionally, it provides a comparative analysis of classical and quantum cryptographic techniques, with a primary focus on quantum encryption methods. The survey also explores potential solutions to address the challenges inherent in classical encryption schemes, highlighting how these challenges can be mitigated through quantum encryption approaches. As quantum computing continues to evolve, the need for quantum-secure encryption methods becomes more critical. This survey not only highlights the innovative techniques that show promise for future secure visual data transmission but also identifies key areas for future research and development, paving the way for robust and scalable solutions in the quantum computing era.
Quantum computers pose existential threats to classical cryptographic systems, including those used to secure digital watermarking—the embedding of robust, imperceptible information into multimedia for copyright protection and authentication. As Shor's and Grover's algorithms undermine the security of RSA, ECC, and symmetric key schemes, respectively, watermarking techniques reliant on these cryptosystems are at risk of attack once practical quantum computers emerge. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art in quantum-resistant, or post-quantum, digital watermarking. We examine approaches that leverage post-quantum public-key primitives, such as lattice-based, hash-based, and code-based cryptography, to establish secure embedding and verification protocols that are immune to quantum decryption. Additionally, we analyze the computational trade-offs of integrating quantum-safe algorithms into watermarking pipelines—in terms of embedding transparency, capacity, computational cost, and resilience against attacks.