Privacy Preserving and Robust Aggregation for Cross-Silo Federated Learning in Non-IID Settings

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Arazzi, Marco, Cihangiroglu, Mert, Nocera, Antonino
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Arazzi, Marco
Cihangiroglu, Mert
Nocera, Antonino
author_facet Arazzi, Marco
Cihangiroglu, Mert
Nocera, Antonino
contents Federated Averaging remains the most widely used aggregation strategy in federated learning due to its simplicity and scalability. However, its performance degrades significantly in non-IID data settings, where client distributions are highly imbalanced or skewed. Additionally, it relies on clients transmitting metadata, specifically the number of training samples, which introduces privacy risks and may conflict with regulatory frameworks like the European GDPR. In this paper, we propose a novel aggregation strategy that addresses these challenges by introducing class-aware gradient masking. Unlike traditional approaches, our method relies solely on gradient updates, eliminating the need for any additional client metadata, thereby enhancing privacy protection. Furthermore, our approach validates and dynamically weights client contributions based on class-specific importance, ensuring robustness against non-IID distributions, convergence prevention, and backdoor attacks. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate that our method not only outperforms FedAvg and other widely accepted aggregation strategies in non-IID settings but also preserves model integrity in adversarial scenarios. Our results establish the effectiveness of gradient masking as a practical and secure solution for federated learning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_04451
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Privacy Preserving and Robust Aggregation for Cross-Silo Federated Learning in Non-IID Settings
Arazzi, Marco
Cihangiroglu, Mert
Nocera, Antonino
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Cryptography and Security
Federated Averaging remains the most widely used aggregation strategy in federated learning due to its simplicity and scalability. However, its performance degrades significantly in non-IID data settings, where client distributions are highly imbalanced or skewed. Additionally, it relies on clients transmitting metadata, specifically the number of training samples, which introduces privacy risks and may conflict with regulatory frameworks like the European GDPR. In this paper, we propose a novel aggregation strategy that addresses these challenges by introducing class-aware gradient masking. Unlike traditional approaches, our method relies solely on gradient updates, eliminating the need for any additional client metadata, thereby enhancing privacy protection. Furthermore, our approach validates and dynamically weights client contributions based on class-specific importance, ensuring robustness against non-IID distributions, convergence prevention, and backdoor attacks. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate that our method not only outperforms FedAvg and other widely accepted aggregation strategies in non-IID settings but also preserves model integrity in adversarial scenarios. Our results establish the effectiveness of gradient masking as a practical and secure solution for federated learning.
title Privacy Preserving and Robust Aggregation for Cross-Silo Federated Learning in Non-IID Settings
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04451