Vulnerabilities of Foundation Model Integrated Federated Learning Systems Under Adversarial Attacks

Core Concepts

Integrating foundation models into federated learning systems introduces new vulnerabilities that can be exploited by adversaries through a novel attack strategy, highlighting the critical need for enhanced security measures.

Abstract

The content discusses the vulnerabilities of integrating foundation models (FMs) into federated learning (FL) systems, and proposes a novel attack strategy that exploits these vulnerabilities. Key highlights: Federated learning (FL) addresses privacy and security issues in machine learning, but suffers from data insufficiency and imbalance. Integrating foundation models (FMs) can help address these limitations. However, the inherent safety concerns of FMs can introduce new risks when integrated into FL systems, which remains largely unexplored. The authors propose a novel attack strategy that exploits the safety issues of FMs to compromise FL client models, specializing it to backdoor attacks. Extensive experiments on image and text classification tasks show that the FM-integrated FL (FM-FL) system is highly vulnerable to the proposed attack, compared to the classic attack mechanism. Existing robust aggregation and post-training defense strategies in FL offer limited protection against this new threat, underscoring the urgent need for advanced security measures in this domain.

Stats

The content does not provide specific numerical data or metrics to support the key arguments. It focuses on qualitative analysis of the vulnerabilities and the proposed attack strategy.

Quotes

"The large-scale data scraped from the Internet used for FM training may be of low quality, containing bias, misinformation, toxicity, or even poisoned." "We find that the FM-FL system demonstrates significant vulnerability under this novel attack strategy, and the existing secure aggregation strategies and post-training mitigation methods in FL show insufficient robustness."

Key Insights Distilled From

Vulnerabilities of Foundation Model Integrated Federated Learning Under Adversarial Threats

by Chen Wu,Xi L... at arxiv.org 04-03-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.10375.pdf

Deeper Inquiries

How can the security and reliability of foundation models be improved to mitigate the risks of integrating them into federated learning systems

To enhance the security and reliability of foundation models integrated into federated learning systems, several measures can be implemented. Firstly, improving the quality of the training data used for foundation models is crucial. This involves thorough data preprocessing to remove bias, misinformation, toxicity, and ensure data quality. Additionally, implementing robustness checks during the training phase to detect and mitigate potential vulnerabilities can enhance the security of foundation models. Regular audits and evaluations of the model's performance and behavior can also help in identifying and addressing any security concerns. Furthermore, incorporating privacy-preserving techniques such as differential privacy and secure multi-party computation can safeguard sensitive data during the federated learning process. Implementing strict access controls and encryption mechanisms to protect the model and data from unauthorized access is also essential in ensuring the reliability of foundation models in federated learning systems.

What other types of adversarial attacks, beyond backdoor attacks, could be leveraged to compromise foundation model integrated federated learning systems

Beyond backdoor attacks, several other types of adversarial attacks could be leveraged to compromise foundation model integrated federated learning systems. Adversarial examples, where small, imperceptible perturbations are made to input data to mislead the model, can be a significant threat. Data poisoning attacks, where malicious data is injected into the training dataset to manipulate the model's behavior, can also pose a risk. Model inversion attacks, membership inference attacks, and model extraction attacks are other potential threats that could compromise the security and privacy of foundation models in federated learning systems. Adversaries could also exploit model vulnerabilities such as model inversion to extract sensitive information or launch targeted attacks on the federated learning system.

What novel defense mechanisms could be developed to specifically address the vulnerabilities introduced by foundation models in federated learning, beyond the existing robust aggregation and post-training approaches

Novel defense mechanisms tailored to address the vulnerabilities introduced by foundation models in federated learning can significantly enhance the security of the system. One approach could be the development of anomaly detection techniques that can identify abnormal behavior in model updates or data distributions, signaling a potential attack. Adversarial training, where the model is trained on adversarially crafted examples to improve robustness, can also help in mitigating adversarial attacks. Secure enclaves or trusted execution environments can be utilized to protect sensitive computations and data during the federated learning process. Additionally, the implementation of secure federated learning protocols with strong encryption and authentication mechanisms can safeguard the communication and collaboration between clients and the server. Continuous monitoring and auditing of the federated learning system for any suspicious activities or deviations from normal behavior can also aid in detecting and mitigating potential attacks.