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Main Authors: Sofer, Elad, Shaked, Tomer, Chaux, Caroline, Shlezinger, Nir
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.19000
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author Sofer, Elad
Shaked, Tomer
Chaux, Caroline
Shlezinger, Nir
author_facet Sofer, Elad
Shaked, Tomer
Chaux, Caroline
Shlezinger, Nir
contents Machine learning (ML) models are often sensitive to carefully crafted yet seemingly unnoticeable perturbations. Such adversarial examples are considered to be a property of ML models, often associated with their black-box operation and sensitivity to features learned from data. This work examines the adversarial sensitivity of non-learned decision rules, and particularly of iterative optimizers. Our analysis is inspired by the recent developments in deep unfolding, which cast such optimizers as ML models. We show that non-learned iterative optimizers share the sensitivity to adversarial examples of ML models, and that attacking iterative optimizers effectively alters the optimization objective surface in a manner that modifies the minima sought. We then leverage the ability to cast iteration-limited optimizers as ML models to enhance robustness via adversarial training. For a class of proximal gradient optimizers, we rigorously prove how their learning affects adversarial sensitivity. We numerically back our findings, showing the vulnerability of various optimizers, as well as the robustness induced by unfolding and adversarial training.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_19000
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Unveiling and Mitigating Adversarial Vulnerabilities in Iterative Optimizers
Sofer, Elad
Shaked, Tomer
Chaux, Caroline
Shlezinger, Nir
Machine Learning
Signal Processing
Machine learning (ML) models are often sensitive to carefully crafted yet seemingly unnoticeable perturbations. Such adversarial examples are considered to be a property of ML models, often associated with their black-box operation and sensitivity to features learned from data. This work examines the adversarial sensitivity of non-learned decision rules, and particularly of iterative optimizers. Our analysis is inspired by the recent developments in deep unfolding, which cast such optimizers as ML models. We show that non-learned iterative optimizers share the sensitivity to adversarial examples of ML models, and that attacking iterative optimizers effectively alters the optimization objective surface in a manner that modifies the minima sought. We then leverage the ability to cast iteration-limited optimizers as ML models to enhance robustness via adversarial training. For a class of proximal gradient optimizers, we rigorously prove how their learning affects adversarial sensitivity. We numerically back our findings, showing the vulnerability of various optimizers, as well as the robustness induced by unfolding and adversarial training.
title Unveiling and Mitigating Adversarial Vulnerabilities in Iterative Optimizers
topic Machine Learning
Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.19000