Defending crosstalk-mediated quantum attacks using dynamical decoupling

Abstract: In the past few years, the field of quantum computing is reaching new heights with significant advancements in algorithm development. In parallel to rising research areas, companies and research labs are actively working to build fault-tolerant quantum computers which can help provide accurate and speedy results for the various experiments. The increasing demand for quantum computers necessitates the sharing of hardware to enable multi-tenancy for a broad user base. While this approach optimizes the utilization of limited quantum resources, it also introduces potential security vulnerabilities. In this paper we examine dynamical decoupling (DD) as a countermeasure to protect the legitimate circuit from such threats. We focus on crosstalk-mediated attacks on Grover's search algorithm. We find that, when compared to other countermeasures, DD successfully mitigates the attack and in some cases is able to improve the performance of the circuit beyond the level of no-attack. Thus our results emphasis the importance of incorporating DD into algorithm executions on multi-tenancy quantum hardware.