As the quantum research community continues to grow and new algorithms are designed, developed, and implemented, it is crucial to start thinking about security aspects and potential threats that could result in misuse of the algorithms, or jeopardize the information processed with these quantum algorithms. This work focuses on exploration of two types of potential attacks that could be deployed on a cloud-based quantum computer by an attacker circuit trying to interfere with victim circuit. The two attacks, called Improper Initialization Attack (IIA) and Higher Energy Attack (HEA), are for the first time applied to a well-known and widely used quantum algorithm: HHL. The HHL algorithm is used in the field of machine learning and big data for solving systems of linear equations. This work evaluates the effect of the attacks on different qubits within the HHL algorithm: ancilla qubit, clock qubit, and b qubit. This work demonstrates that the two attacks are able to cause incorrect results, even when only one of the qubits in the victim algorithm is attacked. Having discovered the vulnerabilities, the work motivates the need for future work to develop defense strategies for each of these attack scenarios.

翻译：随着量子研究社区的持续壮大以及新算法的设计、开发与实现，开始思考安全层面及潜在威胁变得至关重要，这些威胁可能导致算法的误用，或危及通过此类量子算法处理的信息。本研究重点探究两种潜在攻击类型，攻击者电路可通过这些攻击在基于云的量子计算机上干扰受害者电路。这两种分别称为不当初始化攻击（IIA）和高能量攻击（HEA）的攻击，首次被应用于一个著名且广泛使用的量子算法：HHL。HHL算法在机器学习与大数据领域用于求解线性方程组。本研究评估了攻击对HHL算法中不同量子比特的影响：辅助量子比特、时钟量子比特和b量子比特。研究证明，即使受害者算法中仅有一个量子比特遭受攻击，这两种攻击仍能导致错误结果。在发现这些漏洞后，本研究进一步指出未来需要针对每种攻击场景开发相应防御策略的必要性。