Title: Kick Bad Guys Out! Conditionally Activated Anomaly Detection in Federated Learning with Zero-Knowledge Proof Verification
Primary area: alignment, fairness, safety, privacy, and societal considerations
Keywords: federated learning, outlier detection, defense, zero-knowledge-proof

Abstract: Federated Learning (FL) systems are susceptible to adversarial attacks, such as model poisoning attacks and backdoor attacks. Existing defense mechanisms face critical limitations in real-world deployments, such as relying on impractical assumptions (e.g., adversaries acknowledging the presence of attacks before attacking) or undermining accuracy in model training, even in benign scenarios. To address these challenges, we propose RedJasper, a two-staged anomaly detection method specifically designed for real-world FL deployments. It identifies suspicious activities in the first stage, then activates the second stage conditionally to further scrutinize the suspicious local models, employing the 3σ rule to identify real malicious local models and filtering them out from FL training. To ensure integrity and transparency within the FL system, RedJasper integrates zero-knowledge proofs, enabling clients to cryptographically verify the server’s detection process without relying on the server’s goodwill. RedJasper operates without unrealistic assumptions and avoids interfering with FL training in attack-free scenarios. It bridges the gap between theoretical advances in FL security and the practical demands of real-world deployment. Experimental results demonstrate that RedJasper consistently delivers performance comparable to benign cases, highlighting its effectiveness in identifying potential attacks and eliminating malicious models with high accuracy.

TL;DR: An outlier detection method on federated learning