Graph Representation-based Model Poisoning on the Heterogeneous Internet of Agents

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Cai, Hanlin, Wang, Houtianfu, Dong, Haofan, Li, Kai, Zou, Sai, Akan, Ozgur B.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Cai, Hanlin
Wang, Houtianfu
Dong, Haofan
Li, Kai
Zou, Sai
Akan, Ozgur B.
author_facet Cai, Hanlin
Wang, Houtianfu
Dong, Haofan
Li, Kai
Zou, Sai
Akan, Ozgur B.
contents Internet of Agents (IoA) envisions a unified, agent-centric paradigm where heterogeneous large language model (LLM) agents can interconnect and collaborate at scale. Within this paradigm, federated fine-tuning (FFT) serves as a key enabler that allows distributed LLM agents to co-train an intelligent global LLM without centralizing local datasets. However, the FFT-enabled IoA systems remain vulnerable to model poisoning attacks, where adversaries can upload malicious updates to the server to degrade the performance of the aggregated global LLM. This paper proposes a graph representation-based model poisoning (GRMP) attack, which exploits overheard benign updates to construct a feature correlation graph and employs a variational graph autoencoder to capture structural dependencies and generate malicious updates. A novel attack algorithm is developed based on augmented Lagrangian and subgradient descent methods to optimize malicious updates that preserve benign-like statistics while embedding adversarial objectives. Experimental results show that the proposed GRMP attack can substantially decrease accuracy across different LLM models while remaining statistically consistent with benign updates, thereby evading detection by existing defense mechanisms and underscoring a severe threat to the ambitious IoA paradigm.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_07176
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Graph Representation-based Model Poisoning on the Heterogeneous Internet of Agents
Cai, Hanlin
Wang, Houtianfu
Dong, Haofan
Li, Kai
Zou, Sai
Akan, Ozgur B.
Networking and Internet Architecture
Computation and Language
Internet of Agents (IoA) envisions a unified, agent-centric paradigm where heterogeneous large language model (LLM) agents can interconnect and collaborate at scale. Within this paradigm, federated fine-tuning (FFT) serves as a key enabler that allows distributed LLM agents to co-train an intelligent global LLM without centralizing local datasets. However, the FFT-enabled IoA systems remain vulnerable to model poisoning attacks, where adversaries can upload malicious updates to the server to degrade the performance of the aggregated global LLM. This paper proposes a graph representation-based model poisoning (GRMP) attack, which exploits overheard benign updates to construct a feature correlation graph and employs a variational graph autoencoder to capture structural dependencies and generate malicious updates. A novel attack algorithm is developed based on augmented Lagrangian and subgradient descent methods to optimize malicious updates that preserve benign-like statistics while embedding adversarial objectives. Experimental results show that the proposed GRMP attack can substantially decrease accuracy across different LLM models while remaining statistically consistent with benign updates, thereby evading detection by existing defense mechanisms and underscoring a severe threat to the ambitious IoA paradigm.
title Graph Representation-based Model Poisoning on the Heterogeneous Internet of Agents
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.07176