Mitigating Backdoor Attacks in Federated Learning Using PPA and MiniMax Game Theory

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Wehbi, Osama, Arisdakessian, Sarhad, Wahab, Omar Abdel, Avila, Anderson, Mourad, Azzam, Otrok, Hadi
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Wehbi, Osama
Arisdakessian, Sarhad
Wahab, Omar Abdel
Avila, Anderson
Mourad, Azzam
Otrok, Hadi
author_facet Wehbi, Osama
Arisdakessian, Sarhad
Wahab, Omar Abdel
Avila, Anderson
Mourad, Azzam
Otrok, Hadi
contents Federated Learning (FL) is witnessing wider adoption due to its ability to benefit from large amounts of scattered data while preserving privacy. However, despite its advantages, federated learning suffers from several setbacks that directly impact the accuracy, and the integrity of the global model it produces. One of these setbacks is the presence of malicious clients who actively try to harm the global model by injecting backdoor data into their local models while trying to evade detection. The objective of such clients is to trick the global model into making false predictions during inference, thereby compromising the integrity and trustworthiness of the global model on which honest stakeholders rely. To mitigate such mischievous behavior, we propose FedBBA (Federated Backdoor and Behavior Analysis). The proposed model aims to dampen the effect of such clients on the final accuracy, creating more resilient federated learning environments. We engineer our approach through the combination of (1) a reputation system to evaluate and track client behavior, (2) an incentive mechanism to reward honest participation and penalize malicious behavior, and (3) game theoretical models with projection pursuit analysis (PPA) to dynamically identify and minimize the impact of malicious clients on the global model. Extensive simulations on the German Traffic Sign Recognition Benchmark (GTSRB) and Belgium Traffic Sign Classification (BTSC) datasets demonstrate that FedBBA reduces the backdoor attack success rate to approximately 1.1%--11% across various attack scenarios, significantly outperforming state-of-the-art defenses like RDFL and RoPE, which yielded attack success rates between 23% and 76%, while maintaining high normal task accuracy (~95%--98%).
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_28652
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Mitigating Backdoor Attacks in Federated Learning Using PPA and MiniMax Game Theory
Wehbi, Osama
Arisdakessian, Sarhad
Wahab, Omar Abdel
Avila, Anderson
Mourad, Azzam
Otrok, Hadi
Machine Learning
Cryptography and Security
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Computer Science and Game Theory
Federated Learning (FL) is witnessing wider adoption due to its ability to benefit from large amounts of scattered data while preserving privacy. However, despite its advantages, federated learning suffers from several setbacks that directly impact the accuracy, and the integrity of the global model it produces. One of these setbacks is the presence of malicious clients who actively try to harm the global model by injecting backdoor data into their local models while trying to evade detection. The objective of such clients is to trick the global model into making false predictions during inference, thereby compromising the integrity and trustworthiness of the global model on which honest stakeholders rely. To mitigate such mischievous behavior, we propose FedBBA (Federated Backdoor and Behavior Analysis). The proposed model aims to dampen the effect of such clients on the final accuracy, creating more resilient federated learning environments. We engineer our approach through the combination of (1) a reputation system to evaluate and track client behavior, (2) an incentive mechanism to reward honest participation and penalize malicious behavior, and (3) game theoretical models with projection pursuit analysis (PPA) to dynamically identify and minimize the impact of malicious clients on the global model. Extensive simulations on the German Traffic Sign Recognition Benchmark (GTSRB) and Belgium Traffic Sign Classification (BTSC) datasets demonstrate that FedBBA reduces the backdoor attack success rate to approximately 1.1%--11% across various attack scenarios, significantly outperforming state-of-the-art defenses like RDFL and RoPE, which yielded attack success rates between 23% and 76%, while maintaining high normal task accuracy (~95%--98%).
title Mitigating Backdoor Attacks in Federated Learning Using PPA and MiniMax Game Theory
topic Machine Learning
Cryptography and Security
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28652