Detecting Backdoor Attacks via Similarity in Semantic Communication Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wei, Ziyang, Jiang, Yili, Huang, Jiaqi, Zhong, Fangtian, Gyawali, Sohan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866917914639073280
author Wei, Ziyang
Jiang, Yili
Huang, Jiaqi
Zhong, Fangtian
Gyawali, Sohan
author_facet Wei, Ziyang
Jiang, Yili
Huang, Jiaqi
Zhong, Fangtian
Gyawali, Sohan
contents Semantic communication systems, which leverage Generative AI (GAI) to transmit semantic meaning rather than raw data, are poised to revolutionize modern communications. However, they are vulnerable to backdoor attacks, a type of poisoning manipulation that embeds malicious triggers into training datasets. As a result, Backdoor attacks mislead the inference for poisoned samples while clean samples remain unaffected. The existing defenses may alter the model structure (such as neuron pruning that potentially degrades inference performance on clean inputs, or impose strict requirements on data formats (such as ``Semantic Shield" that requires image-text pairs). To address these limitations, this work proposes a defense mechanism that leverages semantic similarity to detect backdoor attacks without modifying the model structure or imposing data format constraints. By analyzing deviations in semantic feature space and establishing a threshold-based detection framework, the proposed approach effectively identifies poisoned samples. The experimental results demonstrate high detection accuracy and recall across varying poisoning ratios, underlining the significant effectiveness of our proposed solution.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_03721
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Detecting Backdoor Attacks via Similarity in Semantic Communication Systems
Wei, Ziyang
Jiang, Yili
Huang, Jiaqi
Zhong, Fangtian
Gyawali, Sohan
Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
Semantic communication systems, which leverage Generative AI (GAI) to transmit semantic meaning rather than raw data, are poised to revolutionize modern communications. However, they are vulnerable to backdoor attacks, a type of poisoning manipulation that embeds malicious triggers into training datasets. As a result, Backdoor attacks mislead the inference for poisoned samples while clean samples remain unaffected. The existing defenses may alter the model structure (such as neuron pruning that potentially degrades inference performance on clean inputs, or impose strict requirements on data formats (such as ``Semantic Shield" that requires image-text pairs). To address these limitations, this work proposes a defense mechanism that leverages semantic similarity to detect backdoor attacks without modifying the model structure or imposing data format constraints. By analyzing deviations in semantic feature space and establishing a threshold-based detection framework, the proposed approach effectively identifies poisoned samples. The experimental results demonstrate high detection accuracy and recall across varying poisoning ratios, underlining the significant effectiveness of our proposed solution.
title Detecting Backdoor Attacks via Similarity in Semantic Communication Systems
topic Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.03721