Side-channel Attacks on Quantum Controllers for Extracting Quantum Circuit Information and Countermeasures

Side-channel Attacks on Quantum Controllers for Extracting Quantum Circuit Information and Countermeasures | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Side-channel Attacks on Quantum Controllers for Extracting Quantum Circuit Information and Countermeasures Mohammad Javad Ebrahim Shahraki, Mohammad Javad Jannati This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8480564/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 7 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract With the growing deployment of quantum computing, side-channel attacks have emerged as one of the most serious security threats for cloud quantum service providers. This study investigates whether it is possible to infer the execution order and start times of quantum gates—and ultimately reconstruct the victim circuit—solely from measurements of the power consumption of quantum controllers. While most previous research has focused on reconstructing quantum circuits composed of standard basis gates, the possibility of reconstructing users’ custom quantum circuits from the power leakage of quantum controllers has received little attention. Our approach is evaluated under two observation models: per-channel power and total power. In the per-channel setting, the power trace of each channel is analyzed separately and compared with simulated pulse templates for different gates, in order to identify the most likely gate type and its start time. In this setting, template-based power comparison accurately determines both the gate and its onset time, and simple decision rules reduce misclassification between similar gates. In the total-power setting, an optimization model is employed to recover the logical ordering of the circuit with good accuracy, without requiring access to individual channel traces. The results show that even with a single measurement, circuit reconstruction is feasible provided that the pulse shapes and the device topology are known. Quantum Computing Side-channel Attacks Quantum Circuits Masking-based Defensive Method Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 23 Mar, 2026 Reviews received at journal 14 Feb, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 02 Feb, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 02 Feb, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 31 Dec, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 31 Dec, 2025 First submitted to journal 30 Dec, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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