pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Spill The Beans: Exploiting CPU Cache Side-Channels to Leak Tokens from Large Language Models
Authors: Andrew Adiletta, Berk Sunar
Date: 2025-05-01 00:00:00
Tasks: CPU

Side-channel attacks on shared hardware resources increasingly threaten confidentiality, especially with the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs). In this work, we introduce Spill The Beans, a novel application of cache side-channels to leak tokens generated by an LLM. By co-locating an attack process on the same hardware as the victim model, we flush and reload embedding vectors from the embedding layer, where each token corresponds to a unique embedding vector. When accessed during token generation, it results in a cache hit detectable by our attack on shared lower-level caches. A significant challenge is the massive size of LLMs, which, by nature of their compute intensive operation, quickly evicts embedding vectors from the cache. We address this by balancing the number of tokens monitored against the amount of information leaked. Monitoring more tokens increases potential vocabulary leakage but raises the chance of missing cache hits due to eviction; monitoring fewer tokens improves detection reliability but limits vocabulary coverage. Through extensive experimentation, we demonstrate the feasibility of leaking tokens from LLMs via cache side-channels. Our findings reveal a new vulnerability in LLM deployments, highlighting that even sophisticated models are susceptible to traditional side-channel attacks. We discuss the implications for privacy and security in LLM-serving infrastructures and suggest considerations for mitigating such threats. For proof of concept we consider two concrete attack scenarios: Our experiments show that an attacker can recover as much as 80%-90% of a high entropy API key with single shot monitoring. As for English text we can reach a 40% recovery rate with a single shot. We should note that the rate highly depends on the monitored token set and these rates can be improved by targeting more specialized output domains.
Enhancing the Cloud Security through Topic Modelling
Authors: Sabbir M. Saleh, Nazim Madhavji, John Steinbacher
Date: 2025-05-01 00:00:00
Tasks: Vulnerability Detection

Protecting cloud applications is crucial in an age where security constantly threatens the digital world. The inevitable cyber-attacks throughout the CI/CD pipeline make cloud security innovations necessary. This research is motivated by applying Natural Language Processing (NLP) methodologies, such as Topic Modelling, to analyse cloud security data and predict future attacks. This research aims to use topic modelling, specifically Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (pLSA). Utilising LDA and PLSA, security-related text data, such as reports, logs, and other relevant documents, will be analysed and sorted into relevant topics (such as phishing or encryption). These algorithms may apply through Python using the Gensim framework. The topics shall be utilised to detect vulnerabilities within relevant CI/CD pipeline records or log data. This application of Topic Modelling anticipates providing a new form of vulnerability detection, improving overall security throughout the CI/CD pipeline.
Activation Space Interventions Can Be Transferred Between Large Language Models
Authors: Narmeen Oozeer, Dhruv Nathawani, Nirmalendu Prakash, Michael Lan, Abir Harrasse, Amirali Abdullah
Date: 2025-03-06 00:00:00

The study of representation universality in AI models reveals growing convergence across domains, modalities, and architectures. However, the practical applications of representation universality remain largely unexplored. We bridge this gap by demonstrating that safety interventions can be transferred between models through learned mappings of their shared activation spaces. We demonstrate this approach on two well-established AI safety tasks: backdoor removal and refusal of harmful prompts, showing successful transfer of steering vectors that alter the models' outputs in a predictable way. Additionally, we propose a new task, \textit{corrupted capabilities}, where models are fine-tuned to embed knowledge tied to a backdoor. This tests their ability to separate useful skills from backdoors, reflecting real-world challenges. Extensive experiments across Llama, Qwen and Gemma model families show that our method enables using smaller models to efficiently align larger ones. Furthermore, we demonstrate that autoencoder mappings between base and fine-tuned models can serve as reliable ``lightweight safety switches", allowing dynamic toggling between model behaviors.
Development of an Adapter for Analyzing and Protecting Machine Learning Models from Competitive Activity in the Networks Services
Authors: Denis Parfenov, Anton Parfenov
Date: 2025-05-01 00:00:00

Due to the increasing number of tasks that are solved on remote servers, identifying and classifying traffic is an important task to reduce the load on the server. There are various methods for classifying traffic. This paper discusses machine learning models for solving this problem. However, such ML models are also subject to attacks that affect the classification result of network traffic. To protect models, we proposed a solution based on an autoencoder
Can Differentially Private Fine-tuning LLMs Protect Against Privacy Attacks?
Authors: Hao Du, Shang Liu, Yang Cao
Date: 2025-04-28 00:00:00

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) has become an essential strategy for adapting them to specialized tasks; however, this process introduces significant privacy challenges, as sensitive training data may be inadvertently memorized and exposed. Although differential privacy (DP) offers strong theoretical guarantees against such leakage, its empirical privacy effectiveness on LLMs remains unclear, especially under different fine-tuning methods. In this paper, we systematically investigate the impact of DP across fine-tuning methods and privacy budgets, using both data extraction and membership inference attacks to assess empirical privacy risks. Our main findings are as follows: (1) Differential privacy reduces model utility, but its impact varies significantly across different fine-tuning methods. (2) Without DP, the privacy risks of models fine-tuned with different approaches differ considerably. (3) When DP is applied, even a relatively high privacy budget can substantially lower privacy risk. (4) The privacy-utility trade-off under DP training differs greatly among fine-tuning methods, with some methods being unsuitable for DP due to severe utility degradation. Our results provide practical guidance for privacy-conscious deployment of LLMs and pave the way for future research on optimizing the privacy-utility trade-off in fine-tuning methodologies.
Graph Privacy: A Heterogeneous Federated GNN for Trans-Border Financial Data Circulation
Authors: Zhizhong Tan, Jiexin Zheng, Kevin Qi Zhang, Wenyong Wang
Date: 2025-05-01 00:00:00
Tasks: Graph Neural Network

The sharing of external data has become a strong demand of financial institutions, but the privacy issue has led to the difficulty of interconnecting different platforms and the low degree of data openness. To effectively solve the privacy problem of financial data in trans-border flow and sharing, to ensure that the data is available but not visible, to realize the joint portrait of all kinds of heterogeneous data of business organizations in different industries, we propose a Heterogeneous Federated Graph Neural Network (HFGNN) approach. In this method, the distribution of heterogeneous business data of trans-border organizations is taken as subgraphs, and the sharing and circulation process among subgraphs is constructed as a statistically heterogeneous global graph through a central server. Each subgraph learns the corresponding personalized service model through local training to select and update the relevant subset of subgraphs with aggregated parameters, and effectively separates and combines topological and feature information among subgraphs. Finally, our simulation experimental results show that the proposed method has higher accuracy performance and faster convergence speed than existing methods.
Giving Simulated Cells a Voice: Evolving Prompt-to-Intervention Models for Cellular Control
Authors: Nam H. Le, Patrick Erikson, Yanbo Zhang, Michael Levin, Josh Bongard
Date: 2025-05-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Large Language Model

Guiding biological systems toward desired states, such as morphogenetic outcomes, remains a fundamental challenge with far-reaching implications for medicine and synthetic biology. While large language models (LLMs) have enabled natural language as an interface for interpretable control in AI systems, their use as mediators for steering biological or cellular dynamics remains largely unexplored. In this work, we present a functional pipeline that translates natural language prompts into spatial vector fields capable of directing simulated cellular collectives. Our approach combines a large language model with an evolvable neural controller (Prompt-to-Intervention, or P2I), optimized via evolutionary strategies to generate behaviors such as clustering or scattering in a simulated 2D environment. We demonstrate that even with constrained vocabulary and simplified cell models, evolved P2I networks can successfully align cellular dynamics with user-defined goals expressed in plain language. This work offers a complete loop from language input to simulated bioelectric-like intervention to behavioral output, providing a foundation for future systems capable of natural language-driven cellular control.
LLM-Based Threat Detection and Prevention Framework for IoT Ecosystems
Authors: Yazan Otoum, Arghavan Asad, Amiya Nayak
Date: 2025-05-01 00:00:00
Tasks: Anomaly Detection, Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Large Language Model

The increasing complexity and scale of the Internet of Things (IoT) have made security a critical concern. This paper presents a novel Large Language Model (LLM)-based framework for comprehensive threat detection and prevention in IoT environments. The system integrates lightweight LLMs fine-tuned on IoT-specific datasets (IoT-23, TON_IoT) for real-time anomaly detection and automated, context-aware mitigation strategies optimized for resource-constrained devices. A modular Docker-based deployment enables scalable and reproducible evaluation across diverse network conditions. Experimental results in simulated IoT environments demonstrate significant improvements in detection accuracy, response latency, and resource efficiency over traditional security methods. The proposed framework highlights the potential of LLM-driven, autonomous security solutions for future IoT ecosystems.
Bye-bye, Bluebook? Automating Legal Procedure with Large Language Models
Authors: Matthew Dahl
Date: 2025-05-05 00:00:00
Tasks: In-Context Learning

Legal practice requires careful adherence to procedural rules. In the United States, few are more complex than those found in The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Compliance with this system's 500+ pages of byzantine formatting instructions is the raison d'etre of thousands of student law review editors and the bete noire of lawyers everywhere. To evaluate whether large language models (LLMs) are able to adhere to the procedures of such a complicated system, we construct an original dataset of 866 Bluebook tasks and test flagship LLMs from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and DeepSeek. We show (1) that these models produce fully compliant Bluebook citations only 69%-74% of the time and (2) that in-context learning on the Bluebook's underlying system of rules raises accuracy only to 77%. These results caution against using off-the-shelf LLMs to automate aspects of the law where fidelity to procedure is paramount.
The use of Artificial Intelligence for Intervention and Assessment in Individuals with ASD
Authors: Aggeliki Sideraki, Christos-Nikolaos Anagnostopoulos
Date: 2025-05-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Diagnostic

This paper explores the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool for diagnosis, assessment, and intervention for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). It focuses particularly on AI's role in early diagnosis, utilizing advanced machine learning techniques and data analysis. Recent studies demonstrate that deep learning algorithms can identify behavioral patterns through biometric data analysis, video-based interaction assessments, and linguistic feature extraction, providing a more accurate and timely diagnosis compared to traditional methods. Additionally, AI automates diagnostic tools, reducing subjective biases and enabling the development of personalized assessment protocols for ASD monitoring. At the same time, the paper examines AI-powered intervention technologies, emphasizing educational robots and adaptive communication tools. Social robotic assistants, such as NAO and Kaspar, have been shown to enhance social skills in children by offering structured, repetitive interactions that reinforce learning. Furthermore, AI-driven Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems allow children with ASD to express themselves more effectively, while machine-learning chatbots provide language development support through personalized responses. The study presents research findings supporting the effectiveness of these AI applications while addressing challenges such as long-term evaluation and customization to individual needs. In conclusion, the paper highlights the significance of AI as an innovative tool in ASD diagnosis and intervention, advocating for further research to assess its long-term impact.
CreoPep: A Universal Deep Learning Framework for Target-Specific Peptide Design and Optimization
Authors: Cheng Ge, Han-Shen Tae, Zhenqiang Zhang, Lu Lu, Zhijie Huang, Yilin Wang, Tao Jiang, Wenqing Cai, Shan Chang, David J. Adams, Rilei Yu
Date: 2025-05-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Diversity, Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Masked Language Modeling

Target-specific peptides, such as conotoxins, exhibit exceptional binding affinity and selectivity toward ion channels and receptors. However, their therapeutic potential remains underutilized due to the limited diversity of natural variants and the labor-intensive nature of traditional optimization strategies. Here, we present CreoPep, a deep learning-based conditional generative framework that integrates masked language modeling with a progressive masking scheme to design high-affinity peptide mutants while uncovering novel structural motifs. CreoPep employs an integrative augmentation pipeline, combining FoldX-based energy screening with temperature-controlled multinomial sampling, to generate structurally and functionally diverse peptides that retain key pharmacological properties. We validate this approach by designing conotoxin inhibitors targeting the $\alpha$7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, achieving submicromolar potency in electrophysiological assays. Structural analysis reveals that CreoPep-generated variants engage in both conserved and novel binding modes, including disulfide-deficient forms, thus expanding beyond conventional design paradigms. Overall, CreoPep offers a robust and generalizable platform that bridges computational peptide design with experimental validation, accelerating the discovery of next-generation peptide therapeutics.
Active Light Modulation to Counter Manipulation of Speech Visual Content
Authors: Hadleigh Schwartz, Xiaofeng Yan, Charles J. Carver, Xia Zhou
Date: 2025-04-30 00:00:00

High-profile speech videos are prime targets for falsification, owing to their accessibility and influence. This work proposes Spotlight, a low-overhead and unobtrusive system for protecting live speech videos from visual falsification of speaker identity and lip and facial motion. Unlike predominant falsification detection methods operating in the digital domain, Spotlight creates dynamic physical signatures at the event site and embeds them into all video recordings via imperceptible modulated light. These physical signatures encode semantically-meaningful features unique to the speech event, including the speaker's identity and facial motion, and are cryptographically-secured to prevent spoofing. The signatures can be extracted from any video downstream and validated against the portrayed speech content to check its integrity. Key elements of Spotlight include (1) a framework for generating extremely compact (i.e., 150-bit), pose-invariant speech video features, based on locality-sensitive hashing; and (2) an optical modulation scheme that embeds >200 bps into video while remaining imperceptible both in video and live. Prototype experiments on extensive video datasets show Spotlight achieves AUCs $\geq$ 0.99 and an overall true positive rate of 100% in detecting falsified videos. Further, Spotlight is highly robust across recording conditions, video post-processing techniques, and white-box adversarial attacks on its video feature extraction methodologies.
Taskmaster Deconstructed: A Quantitative Look at Tension, Volatility, and Viewer Ratings
Authors: David H. Silver
Date: 2025-05-05 00:00:00

Taskmaster is a British television show that combines comedic performance with a formal scoring system. Despite the appearance of structured competition, it remains unclear whether scoring dynamics contribute meaningfully to audience engagement. We conducted a statistical analysis of 162 episodes across 18 series, using fifteen episode-level metrics to quantify rank volatility, point spread, lead changes, and winner dominance. None of these metrics showed a significant association with IMDb ratings, even after controlling for series effects. Long-term trends suggest that average points have increased over time, while volatility has slightly declined and rank spread has remained stable. These patterns indicate an attempt to enhance competitive visibility without altering the show's structural equilibrium. We also analyzed contestant rank trajectories and identified five recurring archetypes describing performance styles. These patterns suggest that viewer interest is shaped more by contestant behavior than by game mechanics.
FormalMATH: Benchmarking Formal Mathematical Reasoning of Large Language Models
Authors: Zhouliang Yu, Ruotian Peng, Keyi Ding, Yizhe Li, Zhongyuan Peng, Minghao Liu, Yifan Zhang, Zheng Yuan, Huajian Xin, Wenhao Huang, Yandong Wen, Ge Zhang, Weiyang Liu
Date: 2025-05-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Benchmarking, Mathematical Reasoning, Negation

Formal mathematical reasoning remains a critical challenge for artificial intelligence, hindered by limitations of existing benchmarks in scope and scale. To address this, we present FormalMATH, a large-scale Lean4 benchmark comprising 5,560 formally verified problems spanning from high-school Olympiad challenges to undergraduate-level theorems across diverse domains (e.g., algebra, applied mathematics, calculus, number theory, and discrete mathematics). To mitigate the inefficiency of manual formalization, we introduce a novel human-in-the-loop autoformalization pipeline that integrates: (1) specialized large language models (LLMs) for statement autoformalization, (2) multi-LLM semantic verification, and (3) negation-based disproof filtering strategies using off-the-shelf LLM-based provers. This approach reduces expert annotation costs by retaining 72.09% of statements before manual verification while ensuring fidelity to the original natural-language problems. Our evaluation of state-of-the-art LLM-based theorem provers reveals significant limitations: even the strongest models achieve only 16.46% success rate under practical sampling budgets, exhibiting pronounced domain bias (e.g., excelling in algebra but failing in calculus) and over-reliance on simplified automation tactics. Notably, we identify a counterintuitive inverse relationship between natural-language solution guidance and proof success in chain-of-thought reasoning scenarios, suggesting that human-written informal reasoning introduces noise rather than clarity in the formal reasoning settings. We believe that FormalMATH provides a robust benchmark for benchmarking formal mathematical reasoning.
Cert-SSB: Toward Certified Sample-Specific Backdoor Defense
Authors: Ting Qiao, Yingjia Wang, Xing Liu, Sixing Wu, Jianbing Li, Yiming Li
Date: 2025-04-30 00:00:00
Tasks: backdoor defense

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are vulnerable to backdoor attacks, where an attacker manipulates a small portion of the training data to implant hidden backdoors into the model. The compromised model behaves normally on clean samples but misclassifies backdoored samples into the attacker-specified target class, posing a significant threat to real-world DNN applications. Currently, several empirical defense methods have been proposed to mitigate backdoor attacks, but they are often bypassed by more advanced backdoor techniques. In contrast, certified defenses based on randomized smoothing have shown promise by adding random noise to training and testing samples to counteract backdoor attacks. In this paper, we reveal that existing randomized smoothing defenses implicitly assume that all samples are equidistant from the decision boundary. However, it may not hold in practice, leading to suboptimal certification performance. To address this issue, we propose a sample-specific certified backdoor defense method, termed Cert-SSB. Cert-SSB first employs stochastic gradient ascent to optimize the noise magnitude for each sample, ensuring a sample-specific noise level that is then applied to multiple poisoned training sets to retrain several smoothed models. After that, Cert-SSB aggregates the predictions of multiple smoothed models to generate the final robust prediction. In particular, in this case, existing certification methods become inapplicable since the optimized noise varies across different samples. To conquer this challenge, we introduce a storage-update-based certification method, which dynamically adjusts each sample's certification region to improve certification performance. We conduct extensive experiments on multiple benchmark datasets, demonstrating the effectiveness of our proposed method. Our code is available at https://github.com/NcepuQiaoTing/Cert-SSB.
Token-Efficient RL for LLM Reasoning
Authors: Alan Lee, Harry Tong
Date: 2025-04-29 00:00:00
Tasks: Policy Gradient Methods, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

We propose reinforcement learning (RL) strategies tailored for reasoning in large language models (LLMs) under strict memory and compute limits, with a particular focus on compatibility with LoRA fine-tuning. Building on early policy gradient methods with baseline subtraction, we design critic-free methods that operate on a small, informative subset of output tokens to reduce memory usage and stabilize training. We introduce S-GRPO, a stochastic variant of Group Relative Policy Optimization, and T-SPMO, a token-level prefix matching approach for fine-grained credit assignment. Applied to Qwen2-1.5B, our methods raise accuracy on the SVAMP benchmark from 46% to over 70% and show strong performance on multi-digit multiplication. Surprisingly, full-token GRPO under LoRA fails to improve over the base model, suggesting that selective token-level optimization may act as an implicit regularizer in low-parameter training regimes.