Analysis of crosstalk in NISQ devices and security implications in multi-programming regime

The noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers suffer from unwanted coupling across qubits referred to as crosstalk. Existing literature largely ignores the crosstalk effects which can introduce significant error in circuit optimization. In this work, we present a crosstalk modeling analysis framework for near-term quantum computers after extracting the error-rates experimentally. Our analysis reveals that crosstalk can be of the same order of gate error which is considered a dominant error in NISQ devices. We also propose adversarial fault injection using crosstalk in a multiprogramming environment where the victim and the adversary share the same quantum hardware. Our simulation and experimental results from IBM quantum computers demonstrated that the adversary can inject fault and launch a Denial-of-Service attack. Finally, we propose system- and device-level countermeasures.