Persistence of Backdoor-based Watermarks for Neural Networks: A Comprehensive Evaluation

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Ngo, Anh Tu, Heng, Chuan Song, Chattopadhyay, Nandish, Chattopadhyay, Anupam
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Ngo, Anh Tu
Heng, Chuan Song
Chattopadhyay, Nandish
Chattopadhyay, Anupam
author_facet Ngo, Anh Tu
Heng, Chuan Song
Chattopadhyay, Nandish
Chattopadhyay, Anupam
contents Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have gained considerable traction in recent years due to the unparalleled results they gathered. However, the cost behind training such sophisticated models is resource intensive, resulting in many to consider DNNs to be intellectual property (IP) to model owners. In this era of cloud computing, high-performance DNNs are often deployed all over the internet so that people can access them publicly. As such, DNN watermarking schemes, especially backdoor-based watermarks, have been actively developed in recent years to preserve proprietary rights. Nonetheless, there lies much uncertainty on the robustness of existing backdoor watermark schemes, towards both adversarial attacks and unintended means such as fine-tuning neural network models. One reason for this is that no complete guarantee of robustness can be assured in the context of backdoor-based watermark. In this paper, we extensively evaluate the persistence of recent backdoor-based watermarks within neural networks in the scenario of fine-tuning, we propose/develop a novel data-driven idea to restore watermark after fine-tuning without exposing the trigger set. Our empirical results show that by solely introducing training data after fine-tuning, the watermark can be restored if model parameters do not shift dramatically during fine-tuning. Depending on the types of trigger samples used, trigger accuracy can be reinstated to up to 100%. Our study further explores how the restoration process works using loss landscape visualization, as well as the idea of introducing training data in fine-tuning stage to alleviate watermark vanishing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_02704
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Persistence of Backdoor-based Watermarks for Neural Networks: A Comprehensive Evaluation
Ngo, Anh Tu
Heng, Chuan Song
Chattopadhyay, Nandish
Chattopadhyay, Anupam
Machine Learning
Cryptography and Security
Multimedia
Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have gained considerable traction in recent years due to the unparalleled results they gathered. However, the cost behind training such sophisticated models is resource intensive, resulting in many to consider DNNs to be intellectual property (IP) to model owners. In this era of cloud computing, high-performance DNNs are often deployed all over the internet so that people can access them publicly. As such, DNN watermarking schemes, especially backdoor-based watermarks, have been actively developed in recent years to preserve proprietary rights. Nonetheless, there lies much uncertainty on the robustness of existing backdoor watermark schemes, towards both adversarial attacks and unintended means such as fine-tuning neural network models. One reason for this is that no complete guarantee of robustness can be assured in the context of backdoor-based watermark. In this paper, we extensively evaluate the persistence of recent backdoor-based watermarks within neural networks in the scenario of fine-tuning, we propose/develop a novel data-driven idea to restore watermark after fine-tuning without exposing the trigger set. Our empirical results show that by solely introducing training data after fine-tuning, the watermark can be restored if model parameters do not shift dramatically during fine-tuning. Depending on the types of trigger samples used, trigger accuracy can be reinstated to up to 100%. Our study further explores how the restoration process works using loss landscape visualization, as well as the idea of introducing training data in fine-tuning stage to alleviate watermark vanishing.
title Persistence of Backdoor-based Watermarks for Neural Networks: A Comprehensive Evaluation
topic Machine Learning
Cryptography and Security
Multimedia
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.02704