Comparison of quantum computing algorithms for network traffic partitioning and mitigation of DoS and DDoS attacks

We investigate application of quantum computing algorithms to classifying network traffic and mitigating denial of service and distributed denial of service attacks. Using actual honeynet data, we compare solutions of the Max Cut problem using both the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) and Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE). Experimental results from a 6-qubit quantum computer show that optimal solutions can be found with about 98% accuracy in polynomial execution time. We found that VQE is more accurate than QAOA (compared with classical brute force solutions) but also requires significantly longer execution times. Simulations predict this approach can scale to much larger quantum computing hardware (when available) and may achieve quantum advantage on hardware with 30-35 qubits.