Intruding with Words: Towards Understanding Graph Injection Attacks at the Text Level

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lei, Runlin, Hu, Yuwei, Ren, Yuchen, Wei, Zhewei
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Lei, Runlin
Hu, Yuwei
Ren, Yuchen
Wei, Zhewei
author_facet Lei, Runlin
Hu, Yuwei
Ren, Yuchen
Wei, Zhewei
contents Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) excel across various applications but remain vulnerable to adversarial attacks, particularly Graph Injection Attacks (GIAs), which inject malicious nodes into the original graph and pose realistic threats. Text-attributed graphs (TAGs), where nodes are associated with textual features, are crucial due to their prevalence in real-world applications and are commonly used to evaluate these vulnerabilities. However, existing research only focuses on embedding-level GIAs, which inject node embeddings rather than actual textual content, limiting their applicability and simplifying detection. In this paper, we pioneer the exploration of GIAs at the text level, presenting three novel attack designs that inject textual content into the graph. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, we demonstrate that text interpretability, a factor previously overlooked at the embedding level, plays a crucial role in attack strength. Among the designs we investigate, the Word-frequency-based Text-level GIA (WTGIA) is particularly notable for its balance between performance and interpretability. Despite the success of WTGIA, we discover that defenders can easily enhance their defenses with customized text embedding methods or large language model (LLM)--based predictors. These insights underscore the necessity for further research into the potential and practical significance of text-level GIAs.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_16405
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publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Intruding with Words: Towards Understanding Graph Injection Attacks at the Text Level
Lei, Runlin
Hu, Yuwei
Ren, Yuchen
Wei, Zhewei
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) excel across various applications but remain vulnerable to adversarial attacks, particularly Graph Injection Attacks (GIAs), which inject malicious nodes into the original graph and pose realistic threats. Text-attributed graphs (TAGs), where nodes are associated with textual features, are crucial due to their prevalence in real-world applications and are commonly used to evaluate these vulnerabilities. However, existing research only focuses on embedding-level GIAs, which inject node embeddings rather than actual textual content, limiting their applicability and simplifying detection. In this paper, we pioneer the exploration of GIAs at the text level, presenting three novel attack designs that inject textual content into the graph. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, we demonstrate that text interpretability, a factor previously overlooked at the embedding level, plays a crucial role in attack strength. Among the designs we investigate, the Word-frequency-based Text-level GIA (WTGIA) is particularly notable for its balance between performance and interpretability. Despite the success of WTGIA, we discover that defenders can easily enhance their defenses with customized text embedding methods or large language model (LLM)--based predictors. These insights underscore the necessity for further research into the potential and practical significance of text-level GIAs.
title Intruding with Words: Towards Understanding Graph Injection Attacks at the Text Level
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.16405