MACPruning: Dynamic Operation Pruning to Mitigate Side-Channel DNN Model Extraction

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Ding, Ruyi, Gongye, Cheng, Ranney, Davis, Ding, Aidong Adam, Fei, Yunsi
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Ding, Ruyi
Gongye, Cheng
Ranney, Davis
Ding, Aidong Adam
Fei, Yunsi
author_facet Ding, Ruyi
Gongye, Cheng
Ranney, Davis
Ding, Aidong Adam
Fei, Yunsi
contents As deep learning gains popularity, edge IoT devices have seen proliferating deployment of pre-trained Deep Neural Network (DNN) models. These DNNs represent valuable intellectual property and face significant confidentiality threats from side-channel analysis (SCA), particularly non-invasive Differential Electromagnetic (EM) Analysis (DEMA), which retrieves individual model parameters from EM traces collected during model inference. Traditional SCA mitigation methods, such as masking and shuffling, can still be applied to DNN inference, but will incur significant performance degradation due to the large volume of operations and parameters. Based on the insight that DNN models have high redundancy and are robust to input variation, we introduce MACPruning, a novel lightweight defense against DEMA-based parameter extraction attacks, exploiting specific characteristics of DNN execution. The design principle of MACPruning is to randomly deactivate input pixels and prune the operations (typically multiply-accumulate-MAC) on those pixels. The technique removes certain leakages and overall redistributes weight-dependent EM leakages temporally, and thus effectively mitigates DEMA. To maintain DNN performance, we propose an importance-aware pixel map that preserves critical input pixels, keeping randomness in the defense while minimizing its impact on DNN performance due to operation pruning. We conduct a comprehensive security analysis of MACPruning on various datasets for DNNs on edge devices. Our evaluations demonstrate that MACPruning effectively reduces EM leakages with minimal impact on the model accuracy and negligible computational overhead.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_15020
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MACPruning: Dynamic Operation Pruning to Mitigate Side-Channel DNN Model Extraction
Ding, Ruyi
Gongye, Cheng
Ranney, Davis
Ding, Aidong Adam
Fei, Yunsi
Cryptography and Security
As deep learning gains popularity, edge IoT devices have seen proliferating deployment of pre-trained Deep Neural Network (DNN) models. These DNNs represent valuable intellectual property and face significant confidentiality threats from side-channel analysis (SCA), particularly non-invasive Differential Electromagnetic (EM) Analysis (DEMA), which retrieves individual model parameters from EM traces collected during model inference. Traditional SCA mitigation methods, such as masking and shuffling, can still be applied to DNN inference, but will incur significant performance degradation due to the large volume of operations and parameters. Based on the insight that DNN models have high redundancy and are robust to input variation, we introduce MACPruning, a novel lightweight defense against DEMA-based parameter extraction attacks, exploiting specific characteristics of DNN execution. The design principle of MACPruning is to randomly deactivate input pixels and prune the operations (typically multiply-accumulate-MAC) on those pixels. The technique removes certain leakages and overall redistributes weight-dependent EM leakages temporally, and thus effectively mitigates DEMA. To maintain DNN performance, we propose an importance-aware pixel map that preserves critical input pixels, keeping randomness in the defense while minimizing its impact on DNN performance due to operation pruning. We conduct a comprehensive security analysis of MACPruning on various datasets for DNNs on edge devices. Our evaluations demonstrate that MACPruning effectively reduces EM leakages with minimal impact on the model accuracy and negligible computational overhead.
title MACPruning: Dynamic Operation Pruning to Mitigate Side-Channel DNN Model Extraction
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.15020