Why Quantum Cybersecurity Can’t Wait

Now a full-time PhD student in cybersecurity at Marquette University, Kameni focuses his research on the security of what are called quantum federated learning systems. Specifically, he works on quantum circuit partitioning, which addresses the problem of dividing a quantum circuit across different quantum processing units when one system can’t handle the whole task. The problem brings together three areas that are still typically kept separate today: quantum computing, quantum communication, and security.

The requirements of that intersection are why Kameni chose the University of Chicago’s Quantum Science, Networking, and Communications course. After comparing programs, he saw how UChicago was unique because it had “all the different modules targeting exactly what I wanted.” He underscores the program’s important connections with Chicago’s broader quantum ecosystem as well and how the course is offered by UChicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and managed by the Chicago Quantum Exchange. “Other programs treat quantum computing in isolation,” he says, “but UChicago’s course integrates the fundamentals with communication, sensing, and computing. That’s how quantum systems are actually functioning in the world and also how you need to think about them to make them secure.”

Working Directly with Quantum Systems

Across eight weeks of synchronous and asynchronous work, the Quantum course moves from linear algebra and the fundamentals of quantum information through Qiskit programming, entanglement, quantum key distribution, hardware, and finally to a simulation of a multi-node quantum network using SeQUeNCe, a tool developed at Argonne National Laboratory and UChicago that lets researchers model quantum networks before their supporting hardware becomes widely available.

Coming from a computer science background rather than physics, Kameni had read about quantum mechanics but hadn’t engaged much with its mathematical side prior to the course. “When you look from far away, you see the equations and think, ‘What does this mean?’” he says. “But the instructors help you demystify it. They break down the notation and concepts so that you can begin to grasp it.” The faculty represents some of the field’s leading researchers in quantum information and networking and is drawn from UChicago and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

For Kameni, the decisive part of his learning experience arrived through direct contact with the actual logic and behavior of quantum systems. He describes the excitement of submitting his first Qiskit circuit to IBM hardware and waiting on the results. He says it reshaped how he thinks about computation. “You realize that the computation is different,” Kameni says. “Unlike classical programming, where results are deterministic, quantum computing is probabilistic and it behaves differently each time, so you have to run the circuits multiple times and analyze the distributions. It’s not something I would’ve understood just from reading textbooks.”

That excitement went further when it came to working with the SeQUeNCe framework. “When I was applying to the program, I was already looking forward to the SeQUeNCe section,” he says. “That was going to be the really important one for me because that’s where I’d be able to connect the foundational principles with my research.”

Though Kameni had already spent time thinking about quantum communications from a security standpoint, the hands-on work with entanglement, teleportation, quantum communication protocols, and quantum key distribution took his understanding further by giving him direct experience with the tools he’ll be using in his dissertation.

It Is Happening Now

At the same time, for Kameni, it’s not all academic. The practical side emerges in his cybersecurity work when he encounters skepticism around quantum’s relevance. “People are still asking, ‘Is this something real, or is this something for the future?’” he says. “One of my challenges is to tell them: it is happening now.”

Kameni describes the emerging threat model along these lines: The encryption that protects most digital infrastructure today relies on mathematical problems that classical computers can’t efficiently solve. Quantum computers, using algorithms with more powerful capabilities, could eventually break those protections. The threat is made more pressing by what security researchers call “harvest now, decrypt later.” Here, adversaries collect encrypted data today assuming that future quantum systems will be able to read it.

The defensive response runs on two tracks today. One is post-quantum cryptography, which uses new classical algorithms specifically designed to resist quantum attacks. Kameni’s work focuses on the other track, which uses quantum systems themselves as the defense. Protocols like quantum key distribution offer security grounded in physics rather than mathematical difficulty. The trouble, Kameni says, is that most organizations aren’t yet engaging seriously with either track.

But Kameni understands why the skepticism persists. Things are moving slowly and access to hardware remains limited. It’s what explains how many organizations can still treat quantum as a problem still off in the future. But the UChicago course confirmed for Kameni just how close that future really is and the importance today of getting ahead of the adoption curve. What’s more, the program drove this home in a way Kameni hadn’t expected: through the community it opened up to him.

Through the Chicago Quantum Exchange, he’s attended workshops on superconducting qubits, virtual conferences, and professional networking events. “The program was not just there to give me knowledge,” he says. “It was there to build a community. I feel like I’m a part of it now because my experience at UChicago put me inside one of the nation’s largest quantum hubs.”

As for what comes next, Kameni is open to both academia and industry, with a primary focus on the security side of quantum systems. Coming from a career that spans cybersecurity, software engineering, and quantum machine learning research, he is particularly interested in securing emerging quantum computing and quantum networking infrastructure. He sees that as his specialization and, more broadly, sees quantum itself as the future of computation. Even if that future is still unsettled, he’s approaching it as critical infrastructure in the making, and he knows people will be needed to secure it as the rest of the world catches up.