arXiv Machine Learning

Tight Stability Bounds for Robust Distributed Learning: Byzantine Failures Hurt Generalization More than Data Poisoning

arXiv:2506. 18020v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Robust distributed learning algorithms aim to maintain reliable performance despite the presence of misbehaving workers.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 4

A Nesterov-Accelerated Byzantine-Robust Federated Learning

The paper proposes Byrd-NAFL, a Byzantine‑robust federated learning algorithm that incorporates Nesterov’s momentum and resilient aggregation rules. It achieves fast and safe convergence under non‑convex, smooth loss functions with relaxed gradient assumptions, and provides a finite‑time convergence guarantee. Experiments show that Byrd-NAFL outperforms existing methods in convergence speed, accuracy, and resilience to various malicious attacks.

By Lihan Xu, Xiaoyi Fan, Gang Wang, Runhao Zeng, Xiping Hu, Yanjie Dong
arXiv Machine Learning
4d ago

Byzantine-Robust Federated Representation Learning

arXiv:2609.36660v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study federated learning (FL) with adversarial clients, where the goal is to minimize the average loss of the honest (non-adversarial) clients witho...

By Leonardo F. Toso, James Anderson, Rafael Pinot, Nirupam Gupta
arXiv Machine Learning
1d ago

On the Escaping Efficiency of Distributed Adversarial Training Algorithms

The paper compares distributed adversarial training algorithms—both centralized and decentralized—within multi‑agent learning environments. It introduces a theoretical framework to analyze how efficiently these algorithms escape local minima, a property linked to model flatness and robustness. The study finds that with small perturbation bounds and large batch sizes, decentralized methods (consensus and diffusion) escape local minima faster than centralized ones, but this advantage may diminish as attack strength increases.

By Ying Cao, Kun Yuan, Ali H. Sayed
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 27

Rethinking the Transferable Adversarial Attacks and Robust Defense in Federated Learning

The paper investigates how adversarial examples transfer between client models in federated learning and explores the relationship between these examples and client data distributions. It proposes a defense strategy based on adversarial training that leverages the transferability of model robustness. Experiments on real-life datasets demonstrate that the new attack and defense methods outperform existing state‑of‑the‑art approaches.

By Zuobin Xiong, Deval Mukherjee, Homook Cho, Wei Li
arXiv AI
Sep 2

Optimizing Byzantine Node Placement in Decentralized Federated Learning

The paper investigates how the strategic placement of Byzantine nodes in decentralized federated learning (DFL) affects the propagation of malicious influence across the communication graph. It introduces Byzantine Placement Influence (BPI), a measure that captures cumulative exposure of honest nodes to Byzantine sources over time, and develops algorithms to optimize BPI across various network structures and attack types. Experiments demonstrate that BPI-guided placements consistently yield highly damaging configurations, highlighting the importance of considering node placement in DFL threat models.

By Edoardo Gabrielli, Gabriele Tolomei
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 10

Communication-Efficient Byzantine-Robust Federated Conformal Prediction via Partial Model Sharing

arXiv:2602. 18396v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We propose PRISM-FCP (Partial shaRing and robust calIbration with Statistical Margins for Federated Conformal Prediction), a communication-efficient Byzantine-robust federated conformal prediction framework that uses partial model sharing to mitigate stochastic model-poisoning attacks during training and histogram-based filtering to mitigate adversarial calibration submissions.

By Ehsan Lari, Reza Arablouei, Stefan Werner