FeatMark is a watermarking framework that protects images from text‑to‑image diffusion model mimicry attacks by embedding small, scene‑consistent micro‑features instead of pixel‑level perturbations. It constructs domain‑specific feature banks, selects executable features, and injects them via mask‑guided concept editing to create highly localized, natural edits. Experiments on VGGFace2, CelebA‑HQ, and WikiArt show FeatMark remains robust against ten strong watermark removal attacks and several adaptive attacks, with minimal impact on perceptual quality and extending to video mimicry scenarios.
By Haoyang Li, Ruoxi Sun, Qingqing Ye, Benjamin Zi Hao Zhao, Yaxin Xiao, Jason Xue, Haibo Hu
Text-to-image diffusion models enable data-efficient "mimicry" attacks, wherein adversaries fine-tune the model on a handful of public photos to synthesize convincing forgeries of a target individual....
The paper introduces the concept of watermark laundering, where an attacker uses a single reconstruction prompt on public foundation image models to produce a visually faithful output that renders invisible watermarks undecodable. The authors evaluate this failure mode across six OpenAI and Google image editing models, three watermarking schemes, and 1,800 reconstructions, finding that OpenAI models cause the strongest payload disruption while Nano Banana 2 shows vulnerability of DwtDct under high-fidelity reconstruction. Prompt ablation experiments reveal that the disruption is driven by the reconstruction pathway itself rather than any specific removal instruction, highlighting prompt-conditioned reconstruction as a distinct attack interface.
By Jidong Yang, Qi Li, Wei Zong, Yang-Wai Chow, Willy Susilo, Huaike Yu, Chunpeng Wang, Suo Gao
arXiv:2608. 10166v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Digital watermarking has emerged as a critical technique for provenance and copyright attribution in AI-generated imagery, yet its robustness against realistic, model-agnostic removal attacks remains poorly explored.
By Jie Cao, Qi Li, Zelin Zhang, Xiaodong Wu, Lingshuang Liu, Xiangman Li, Jianbing Ni
arXiv:2609.40031v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Digital image watermarking is increasingly critical in media contexts, as emerging regulations and industry practices require marking AI-generated co...
By Khaled Abud, Aleksey Yakushev, Aleksandr Akimenkov, Irina Serzhenko, Kirill Aistov, Egor Kovalev, Dmitry Obydenkov, Sergey Lavrushkin, Anastasia Antsiferova, Dmitriy Vatolin, Yury Markin, Kirill Lukianov
arXiv:2511. 04949v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Rapid advances in generative AI have led to increasingly realistic deepfakes, posing growing challenges for law enforcement and public trust.
By Tharindu Fernando, Clinton Fookes, Sridha Sridharan