2021/05/15 by Carlos Pedro Gonçalves, Gonçalves, Carlos Pedro · 1 citation
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #81P68 #94-05 #94-08 #94A40 #Computers and Society (cs.CY) #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #Emerging Technologies (cs.ET) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2105.07187
openalex publication_date 2021/05/15 · openalex created_date 2022/07/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The development of automated gate specification for quantum communications\nand quantum networked computation opens up the way for malware designed at\ncorrupting the automation software, changing the automated quantum\ncommunications protocols and algorithms. We study two types of attacks on\nautomated quantum communications protocols and simulate these attacks on the\nsuperdense coding protocol, using remote access to IBM's Quantum Computers\navailable through IBM Q Experience to simulate these attacks on what would be a\nlow noise quantum communications network. The first type of attack leads to a\nhacker-controlled bijective transformation of the final measured strings, the\nsecond type of attack is a unitary scrambling attack that modifies the\nautomated gate specification to effectively scramble the final measurement,\ndisrupting quantum communications and taking advantage of quantum randomness\nupon measurement in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish from hardware\nmalfunction or from a sudden rise in environmental noise. We show that, due to\nquantum entanglement and symmetries, the second type of attack works as a way\nto strategically disrupt quantum communications networks and quantum networked\ncomputation in a way that makes it difficult to ascertain which node was\nattacked. The main findings are discussed in the wider setting of quantum\ncybersecurity and quantum networked computation, where ways of hacking\nincluding the role of insider threats are discussed.\n