ZeTFRi—A Zero Trust-Based Free Rider Detection Framework for Next Generation Federated Learning Networks
Shehan Edirimannage, Ibrahim Khalil, Charitha Elvitigala, Wathsara Daluwatta, Primal Wijesekera, Albert Y. Zomaya · IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications · 2025
With the rapid expansion of next-generation networking, Internet of Things (IoT) devices have become central components of federated learning (FL) networks. FL offers a paradigm for distributed training machine learning models while preserving user data privacy. However, existing network security measures often struggle to identify legitimate contributors from opportunistic free riders within these networks. The Free Rider (FR) problem arises when participants seek to benefit from the FL processes without contributing. In particular, free riders are known to exist within or outside of the network, whereas outside free riders can hardly be identified. The Zero Trust model proposes an environment where no entity, including the network itself, is inherently trusted, providing a foundation to counter external threats seeking to exploit the network. This study proposes a novel framework strengthened by the Zero Trust model to identify external free riders in FL networks. Leveraging a Deep Autoencoding Gaussian Mixture Model (DAGMM)-based technique for internal free rider detection, our framework demonstrates superior performance in identifying free riders across various FR scenarios compared to current state-of-the-art solutions. Through our proposed framework and the principles of Zero Trust, we establish a robust security guarantee for FL networks, ensuring the integrity of the learning process.