HeteroBA: A Structure-Manipulating Backdoor Attack on Heterogeneous Graphs

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Gao, Honglin, Li, Xiang, Zhao, Lan, Xiao, Gaoxi
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Gao, Honglin
Li, Xiang
Zhao, Lan
Xiao, Gaoxi
author_facet Gao, Honglin
Li, Xiang
Zhao, Lan
Xiao, Gaoxi
contents Heterogeneous graph neural networks (HGNNs) have recently drawn increasing attention for modeling complex multi-relational data in domains such as recommendation, finance, and social networks. While existing research has been largely focused on enhancing HGNNs' predictive performance, their robustness and security, especially under backdoor attacks, remain underexplored. In this paper, we propose a novel Heterogeneous Backdoor Attack (HeteroBA) framework for node classification tasks on heterogeneous graphs. HeteroBA inserts carefully crafted trigger nodes with realistic features and targeted structural connections, leveraging attention-based and clustering-based strategies to select influential auxiliary nodes for effective trigger propagation, thereby causing the model to misclassify specific nodes into a target label while maintaining accuracy on clean data. Experimental results on three datasets and various HGNN architectures demonstrate that HeteroBA achieves high attack success rates with minimal impact on the clean accuracy. Our method sheds light on potential vulnerabilities in HGNNs and calls for more robust defenses against backdoor threats in multi-relational graph scenarios.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_21140
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle HeteroBA: A Structure-Manipulating Backdoor Attack on Heterogeneous Graphs
Gao, Honglin
Li, Xiang
Zhao, Lan
Xiao, Gaoxi
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Heterogeneous graph neural networks (HGNNs) have recently drawn increasing attention for modeling complex multi-relational data in domains such as recommendation, finance, and social networks. While existing research has been largely focused on enhancing HGNNs' predictive performance, their robustness and security, especially under backdoor attacks, remain underexplored. In this paper, we propose a novel Heterogeneous Backdoor Attack (HeteroBA) framework for node classification tasks on heterogeneous graphs. HeteroBA inserts carefully crafted trigger nodes with realistic features and targeted structural connections, leveraging attention-based and clustering-based strategies to select influential auxiliary nodes for effective trigger propagation, thereby causing the model to misclassify specific nodes into a target label while maintaining accuracy on clean data. Experimental results on three datasets and various HGNN architectures demonstrate that HeteroBA achieves high attack success rates with minimal impact on the clean accuracy. Our method sheds light on potential vulnerabilities in HGNNs and calls for more robust defenses against backdoor threats in multi-relational graph scenarios.
title HeteroBA: A Structure-Manipulating Backdoor Attack on Heterogeneous Graphs
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21140