Quantum Bayesian Networks for Cyber-Physical Threat Prediction in Pipeline SCADA Systems

Pipeline supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems are cyber-physical systems whose expanding connectivity to enterprise networks and remote services has broadened the cyber-attack surface. Intrusions can propagate beyond digital networks to manipulate physical processes, producing operational disruption, safety hazards, environmental damage, and financial loss. Predicting such cross-domain threats is difficult because attacks are rare and governed by complex causal dependencies, and classical sampling-based inference scales poorly under rare-evidence conditions. This project constructs a Bayesian network representing causal relationships among cyber-attacks, physical impacts, and sensor observations in a pipeline SCADA environment, informed by a hardware-in-the-loop pipeline testbed with conditional probability tables derived from operational data and engineering judgment. After establishing a classical inference baseline for posterior estimation under normal and rare-evidence queries, the network is encoded as a quantum circuit that preserves its causal structure. Three quantum inference families are implemented and evaluated: quantum rejection sampling, quantum likelihood weighting, and a variational Born-machine approach for posterior attack-probability estimation. Methods are benchmarked on a noiseless simulator and on superconducting quantum hardware, with comparison across accuracy, sample efficiency, and circuit-depth requirements. Expected outputs include a structured probabilistic model of cyber-physical threat propagation, a quantum-circuit implementation suited to near-term hardware, a comparative evaluation report, open-source code, and peer-reviewed publications. Findings will clarify where quantum inference can improve sampling efficiency for rare-event queries in critical infrastructure security and where current hardware constrains deployment, informing risk-assessment workflows for pipeline operators, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), and state DOTs, and laying groundwork for quantum-enhanced digital twin and resilience frameworks.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $150,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552348323

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Howard University

  2400 6th Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20059
• Project Managers:

  Bruner, Britain

• Performing Organizations:

  University of Maryland, College Park

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  College Park, MD  United States  20742
• Principal Investigators:

  Attoh-Okine, Nii

• Start Date: 20260803
• Expected Completion Date: 20270504
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Computer security; Control systems; Pipeline safety; Pipelines; Probability; Risk assessment; Simulation
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Pipelines; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01999935
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Research and Education for Promoting Safety (REPS) University Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552348323
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Aug 19 2026 4:17PM