Work

Learning classical readout quantum PUFs based on single-qubit gates

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) have been proposed as a way to identify and authenticate electronic devices. Recently, several ideas have been presented to that aim to achieve the same for quantum devices. Some of these constructions apply single-qubit gates in order to provide a secure fingerprint of the quantum device. In this work, we formalize the class of classical readout quantum PUFs (CR-QPUFs) using the statistical query (SQ) model and explicitly show insufficient security for CR-QPUFs based on single-qubit rotation gates, when the adversary has SQ access to the CR-QPUF. We demonstrate how a malicious party can learn the CR-QPUF characteristics and forge the signature of a quantum device through a modelling attack using a simple regression of low-degree polynomials. The proposed modelling attack was successfully implemented in a real-world scenario on real IBM Q quantum machines. We thoroughly discuss the prospects and problems of CR-QPUFs where quantum device imperfections are used as a secure fingerprint.

Source: Quantum Machine Intelligence

DOI: 10.1007/s42484-022-00073-1

Authors: Niklas Pirnay, Anna Pappa, Jean-Pierre Seifert

Institutions: Technische Universität Berlin, Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems, Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology

Language: English

Topic: Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security

Subfield: Hardware and Architecture

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,780

Funders: University of Edinburgh, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin University Alliance