Active Attribute Inference Against Well-Generalized Models In Federated Learning
Catarina Gomes, Ricardo Mendes, João P. Vilela · 2025
Federated Learning (FL), a distributed learning mechanism where data is decentralized across multiple devices and periodic gradient updates are shared, is an alternative to centralized training that aims to address privacy issues arising from raw data sharing. Despite the expected privacy benefits, prior research showcases the potential privacy leakage derived from overfitting, exploited by passive attacks. However, limited attention has been given to understanding and defending against active threats that increase model leakage by interfering with the training process, instead of relying on overfitting. This work addresses this gap by introducing Active Attribute Inference (AAI⋆), a novel active attack that encodes sensitive attribute information by making any targeted training sample leave a distinguishable footprint on the gradient of maliciously modified neurons [8]. Results, using two real-world datasets, show that it is possible to successfully encode sensitive information incurring a small error in terms of neuron activation. More importantly, on a practical scenario, AAI⋆can improve upon a state-of-the-art approach by achieving over 90% of restricted ROC AUC, therefore increasing model leakage. To defend against such active attacks, this work introduces several attack detection strategies tailored for different levels of the defender’s knowledge. Including the novel White-box Attack Detection Mechanism (WADM⋆) that detects abnormal changes in weights distribution, and two black-box strategies based on the monitorization of model performance. Results show that the detection rate can be 100% on both datasets. Remarkably, WADM⋆reduces any attack to random guessing while preserving model utility, offering significant improvements over existing defenses, particularly when clients are non-IID. By proposing active attacks against well-generalized models and effective countermeasures, this research contributes to a better understanding of privacy in FL systems.