arXiv AI By Zhenyu Yu

InstantForget: Update-Free Backdoor Unlearning with Inference-Time Feature Reset

Read the original on arXiv AI →

arXiv:2606. 15730v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Backdoor unlearning aims to remove a malicious trigger behavior from a deployed model while preserving clean utility.

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arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 4

Beyond Small Patches: Black-Box Detection and Purification of Diverse Backdoor Triggers

The paper introduces TRIM, a black‑box defense for backdoor attacks in computer vision models. TRIM identifies and removes malicious trigger regions at inference time using region‑based segmentation, adaptive trigger discovery via inpainting and diffusion, and selective purification, without needing model internals, training data, or clean samples. Experiments on various datasets and trigger types show TRIM reduces attack success rates to as low as 1.16% while maintaining high clean accuracy.

By Ahmed Abdelnaby, Mohamed Elmahallawy
arXiv AI
3d ago

Trusted Weights, Treacherous Optimizations? Optimization-Triggered Backdoor Attacks on LLMs

The paper investigates how inference optimization for large language models can introduce numerical inconsistencies that trigger hidden backdoors. It introduces two types of optimization‑triggered backdoors: the Input‑Specific Optimization Backdoor (ISOB) and the Universal Optimization Backdoor (UOB), the latter enabling a model to remain benign under normal execution but activate a backdoor when optimization is applied. Experiments on seven open‑source LLMs, across multiple tasks and optimization backends, show UOB can achieve up to 100% attack success while maintaining clean accuracy, and the authors propose three defenses that reduce the attack success rate to 0.02.

By Yifei Wang, Yida Yang, Tianlin Li, Xiaohan Zhang, Xiaoyu Zhang, Li Pan
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 11

SpecGuard: Inference-Time Backdoor Detection For Free

SpecGuard is an inference‑time backdoor detector that leverages speculative decoding—using a small draft model to propose tokens and a target model to verify them—without adding extra model computation. By monitoring the draft‑token acceptance rate, SpecGuard detects when a target model shifts toward attacker‑controlled behavior while the draft model does not, signaling a backdoor trigger. The method reliably identifies a range of backdoor types, including stealthy attacks that bypass input‑level filters, across multiple model families.

By Rui Wen, Ahmed Salem, Andrew Paverd, Mark Russinovich, Zheng Li