Verification of Bit-Flip Attacks against Quantized Neural Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Yedi, Huang, Lei, Gao, Pengfei, Song, Fu, Sun, Jun, Dong, Jin Song
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhang, Yedi
Huang, Lei
Gao, Pengfei
Song, Fu
Sun, Jun
Dong, Jin Song
author_facet Zhang, Yedi
Huang, Lei
Gao, Pengfei
Song, Fu
Sun, Jun
Dong, Jin Song
contents In the rapidly evolving landscape of neural network security, the resilience of neural networks against bit-flip attacks (i.e., an attacker maliciously flips an extremely small amount of bits within its parameter storage memory system to induce harmful behavior), has emerged as a relevant area of research. Existing studies suggest that quantization may serve as a viable defense against such attacks. Recognizing the documented susceptibility of real-valued neural networks to such attacks and the comparative robustness of quantized neural networks (QNNs), in this work, we introduce BFAVerifier, the first verification framework designed to formally verify the absence of bit-flip attacks or to identify all vulnerable parameters in a sound and rigorous manner. BFAVerifier comprises two integral components: an abstraction-based method and an MILP-based method. Specifically, we first conduct a reachability analysis with respect to symbolic parameters that represent the potential bit-flip attacks, based on a novel abstract domain with a sound guarantee. If the reachability analysis fails to prove the resilience of such attacks, then we encode this verification problem into an equivalent MILP problem which can be solved by off-the-shelf solvers. Therefore, BFAVerifier is sound, complete, and reasonably efficient. We conduct extensive experiments, which demonstrate its effectiveness and efficiency across various network architectures, quantization bit-widths, and adversary capabilities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_16286
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Verification of Bit-Flip Attacks against Quantized Neural Networks
Zhang, Yedi
Huang, Lei
Gao, Pengfei
Song, Fu
Sun, Jun
Dong, Jin Song
Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
In the rapidly evolving landscape of neural network security, the resilience of neural networks against bit-flip attacks (i.e., an attacker maliciously flips an extremely small amount of bits within its parameter storage memory system to induce harmful behavior), has emerged as a relevant area of research. Existing studies suggest that quantization may serve as a viable defense against such attacks. Recognizing the documented susceptibility of real-valued neural networks to such attacks and the comparative robustness of quantized neural networks (QNNs), in this work, we introduce BFAVerifier, the first verification framework designed to formally verify the absence of bit-flip attacks or to identify all vulnerable parameters in a sound and rigorous manner. BFAVerifier comprises two integral components: an abstraction-based method and an MILP-based method. Specifically, we first conduct a reachability analysis with respect to symbolic parameters that represent the potential bit-flip attacks, based on a novel abstract domain with a sound guarantee. If the reachability analysis fails to prove the resilience of such attacks, then we encode this verification problem into an equivalent MILP problem which can be solved by off-the-shelf solvers. Therefore, BFAVerifier is sound, complete, and reasonably efficient. We conduct extensive experiments, which demonstrate its effectiveness and efficiency across various network architectures, quantization bit-widths, and adversary capabilities.
title Verification of Bit-Flip Attacks against Quantized Neural Networks
topic Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.16286