Addressing The Devastating Effects Of Single-Task Data Poisoning In Exemplar-Free Continual Learning

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Main Authors: Pawlak, Stanisław, Twardowski, Bartłomiej, Trzciński, Tomasz, van de Weijer, Joost
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Pawlak, Stanisław
Twardowski, Bartłomiej
Trzciński, Tomasz
van de Weijer, Joost
author_facet Pawlak, Stanisław
Twardowski, Bartłomiej
Trzciński, Tomasz
van de Weijer, Joost
contents Our research addresses the overlooked security concerns related to data poisoning in continual learning (CL). Data poisoning - the intentional manipulation of training data to affect the predictions of machine learning models - was recently shown to be a threat to CL training stability. While existing literature predominantly addresses scenario-dependent attacks, we propose to focus on a more simple and realistic single-task poison (STP) threats. In contrast to previously proposed poisoning settings, in STP adversaries lack knowledge and access to the model, as well as to both previous and future tasks. During an attack, they only have access to the current task within the data stream. Our study demonstrates that even within these stringent conditions, adversaries can compromise model performance using standard image corruptions. We show that STP attacks are able to strongly disrupt the whole continual training process: decreasing both the stability (its performance on past tasks) and plasticity (capacity to adapt to new tasks) of the algorithm. Finally, we propose a high-level defense framework for CL along with a poison task detection method based on task vectors. The code is available at https://github.com/stapaw/STP.git .
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_04106
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Addressing The Devastating Effects Of Single-Task Data Poisoning In Exemplar-Free Continual Learning
Pawlak, Stanisław
Twardowski, Bartłomiej
Trzciński, Tomasz
van de Weijer, Joost
Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
Our research addresses the overlooked security concerns related to data poisoning in continual learning (CL). Data poisoning - the intentional manipulation of training data to affect the predictions of machine learning models - was recently shown to be a threat to CL training stability. While existing literature predominantly addresses scenario-dependent attacks, we propose to focus on a more simple and realistic single-task poison (STP) threats. In contrast to previously proposed poisoning settings, in STP adversaries lack knowledge and access to the model, as well as to both previous and future tasks. During an attack, they only have access to the current task within the data stream. Our study demonstrates that even within these stringent conditions, adversaries can compromise model performance using standard image corruptions. We show that STP attacks are able to strongly disrupt the whole continual training process: decreasing both the stability (its performance on past tasks) and plasticity (capacity to adapt to new tasks) of the algorithm. Finally, we propose a high-level defense framework for CL along with a poison task detection method based on task vectors. The code is available at https://github.com/stapaw/STP.git .
title Addressing The Devastating Effects Of Single-Task Data Poisoning In Exemplar-Free Continual Learning
topic Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04106