Architectural Backdoors in Neural Networks
Authors: Mikel Bober-Irizar, Ilia Shumailov, Yiren Zhao, Robert Mullins, Nicolas Papernot
AI-generated Key Points
- Machine learning models are vulnerable to adversarial manipulation
- Attackers can manipulate data and data sampling procedures during the training stage to control model behavior
- Common attack goal is to plant backdoors that force the victim model to recognize a trigger known only by the adversary
- A new class of backdoor attacks hide inside model architectures, specifically in the inductive bias of the functions used to train
- Architectural backdoors can survive complete re-training from scratch, making them particularly insidious and difficult to detect
- The paper formalizes the main construction principles behind architectural backdoors, such as a link between input and output, and describes some possible protections against them.
- The authors evaluate their attacks on computer vision benchmarks of different scales and demonstrate that this underlying vulnerability is pervasive across various training settings.
Abstract: Machine learning is vulnerable to adversarial manipulation. Previous literature has demonstrated that at the training stage attackers can manipulate data and data sampling procedures to control model behaviour. A common attack goal is to plant backdoors i.e. force the victim model to learn to recognise a trigger known only by the adversary. In this paper, we introduce a new class of backdoor attacks that hide inside model architectures i.e. in the inductive bias of the functions used to train. These backdoors are simple to implement, for instance by publishing open-source code for a backdoored model architecture that others will reuse unknowingly. We demonstrate that model architectural backdoors represent a real threat and, unlike other approaches, can survive a complete re-training from scratch. We formalise the main construction principles behind architectural backdoors, such as a link between the input and the output, and describe some possible protections against them. We evaluate our attacks on computer vision benchmarks of different scales and demonstrate the underlying vulnerability is pervasive in a variety of training settings.
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