Cross-Paradigm Graph Backdoor Attacks with Promptable Subgraph Triggers

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Liu, Dongyi, Li, Jiangtong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Liu, Dongyi
Li, Jiangtong
author_facet Liu, Dongyi
Li, Jiangtong
contents Graph Neural Networks(GNNs) are vulnerable to backdoor attacks, where adversaries implant malicious triggers to manipulate model predictions. Existing trigger generators are often simplistic in structure and overly reliant on specific features, confining them to a single graph learning paradigm, such as graph supervised learning, graph contrastive learning, or graph prompt learning. Such paradigm-specific designs lead to poor transferability across different learning frameworks, limiting attack success rates in general testing scenarios. To bridge this gap, we propose Cross-Paradigm Graph Backdoor Attacks with Promptable Subgraph Triggers(CP-GBA), which employs Graph Prompt Learning(GPL) to synthesize transferable subgraph triggers. Specifically, we first distill a compact yet expressive trigger set into a queryable repository, jointly optimizing for class-awareness, feature richness, and structural fidelity. Furthermore, we pioneer the theoretical exploration of GPL transferability under prompt-based objectives, ensuring robust generalization to diverse and unseen test-time paradigms. Extensive experiments across multiple real-world datasets and defense scenarios show that CP-GBA achieves state-of-the-art attack success rates.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_22555
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Cross-Paradigm Graph Backdoor Attacks with Promptable Subgraph Triggers
Liu, Dongyi
Li, Jiangtong
Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
Graph Neural Networks(GNNs) are vulnerable to backdoor attacks, where adversaries implant malicious triggers to manipulate model predictions. Existing trigger generators are often simplistic in structure and overly reliant on specific features, confining them to a single graph learning paradigm, such as graph supervised learning, graph contrastive learning, or graph prompt learning. Such paradigm-specific designs lead to poor transferability across different learning frameworks, limiting attack success rates in general testing scenarios. To bridge this gap, we propose Cross-Paradigm Graph Backdoor Attacks with Promptable Subgraph Triggers(CP-GBA), which employs Graph Prompt Learning(GPL) to synthesize transferable subgraph triggers. Specifically, we first distill a compact yet expressive trigger set into a queryable repository, jointly optimizing for class-awareness, feature richness, and structural fidelity. Furthermore, we pioneer the theoretical exploration of GPL transferability under prompt-based objectives, ensuring robust generalization to diverse and unseen test-time paradigms. Extensive experiments across multiple real-world datasets and defense scenarios show that CP-GBA achieves state-of-the-art attack success rates.
title Cross-Paradigm Graph Backdoor Attacks with Promptable Subgraph Triggers
topic Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.22555