Impact of Noise on the Resilience and the Security of Quantum Computing

Qubits, which are building blocks of quantum computers, are fragile and prone to noise and error. Some prominent errors include decoherence/dephasing, gate error, readout error, leakage, and crosstalk. The computation quality degrades in the presence of errors. Therefore, even though quantum computing can theoretically speed-up certain classes of problems, the present-day Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers can only solve small-scale ones. In this work, we present an overview of various noise sources and their impact on the resilience and the security of quantum circuits. Our analysis indicates that noise sources (e.g., crosstalk) create a new attack surface (e.g., fault injection), especially for future large-scale quantum computers that may employ a multi-programming compute model. We also propose countermeasures against the reliability and security issues.