Sleight: Hidden Data Privacy Breaches in Federated Learning
Xueluan Gong, Yuji Wang, Shuike Li, Mengyuan Sun, Songze Li, Chen Chen, Qian Wang, Kwok‐Yan Lam · IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing · 2026
Federated Learning (FL) has emerged as a paradigm for conducting machine learning across broad and decentralized datasets, promising enhanced privacy by obviating the need for direct data sharing. However, recent studies show that attackers can steal private data through model manipulation or gradient analysis. Existing attacks are constrained by low theft quantity or low-resolution data, and they are often easily detected through anomaly monitoring in gradients or weights. In this paper, we propose Sleight, a novel data-reconstruction attack, supported by two key techniques, i.e., distinctive and sparse encoding design and block partitioning. Unlike conventional methods that require detectable changes to the model, Sleight stealthily embeds a hidden model using parameter sharing to systematically extract sensitive data. The Fibonacci-based index design ensures efficient, structured retrieval of memorized data, while the block partitioning method enhances Sleight's capability to handle high-resolution images by dividing them into smaller, manageable units. Extensive experiments on 4 datasets confirmed that Sleight is superior to 5 state-of-the-art data-reconstruction attacks under 5 respective detection methods. Sleight can handle large-scale and high-resolution data without being detected or mitigated by state-of-the-art data reconstruction defense methods. In contrast to baselines, Sleight can be directly applied to both FedAvg and FedSGD scenarios, underscoring the need for developers to devise new defenses against such vulnerabilities. We will open-source our code upon acceptance.