Noise as a Double-Edged Sword: Reinforcement Learning Exploits Randomized Defenses in Neural Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bakos, Steve, Madani, Pooria, Davoudi, Heidar
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Bakos, Steve
Madani, Pooria
Davoudi, Heidar
author_facet Bakos, Steve
Madani, Pooria
Davoudi, Heidar
contents This study investigates a counterintuitive phenomenon in adversarial machine learning: the potential for noise-based defenses to inadvertently aid evasion attacks in certain scenarios. While randomness is often employed as a defensive strategy against adversarial examples, our research reveals that this approach can sometimes backfire, particularly when facing adaptive attackers using reinforcement learning (RL). Our findings show that in specific cases, especially with visually noisy classes, the introduction of noise in the classifier's confidence values can be exploited by the RL attacker, leading to a significant increase in evasion success rates. In some instances, the noise-based defense scenario outperformed other strategies by up to 20\% on a subset of classes. However, this effect was not consistent across all classifiers tested, highlighting the complexity of the interaction between noise-based defenses and different models. These results suggest that in some cases, noise-based defenses can inadvertently create an adversarial training loop beneficial to the RL attacker. Our study emphasizes the need for a more nuanced approach to defensive strategies in adversarial machine learning, particularly in safety-critical applications. It challenges the assumption that randomness universally enhances defense against evasion attacks and highlights the importance of considering adaptive, RL-based attackers when designing robust defense mechanisms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_23870
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Noise as a Double-Edged Sword: Reinforcement Learning Exploits Randomized Defenses in Neural Networks
Bakos, Steve
Madani, Pooria
Davoudi, Heidar
Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
This study investigates a counterintuitive phenomenon in adversarial machine learning: the potential for noise-based defenses to inadvertently aid evasion attacks in certain scenarios. While randomness is often employed as a defensive strategy against adversarial examples, our research reveals that this approach can sometimes backfire, particularly when facing adaptive attackers using reinforcement learning (RL). Our findings show that in specific cases, especially with visually noisy classes, the introduction of noise in the classifier's confidence values can be exploited by the RL attacker, leading to a significant increase in evasion success rates. In some instances, the noise-based defense scenario outperformed other strategies by up to 20\% on a subset of classes. However, this effect was not consistent across all classifiers tested, highlighting the complexity of the interaction between noise-based defenses and different models. These results suggest that in some cases, noise-based defenses can inadvertently create an adversarial training loop beneficial to the RL attacker. Our study emphasizes the need for a more nuanced approach to defensive strategies in adversarial machine learning, particularly in safety-critical applications. It challenges the assumption that randomness universally enhances defense against evasion attacks and highlights the importance of considering adaptive, RL-based attackers when designing robust defense mechanisms.
title Noise as a Double-Edged Sword: Reinforcement Learning Exploits Randomized Defenses in Neural Networks
topic Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.23870