Ensemble-based Adversarial Defense Using Diversified Distance Mapping
Authors: Ehsan Kazemi, Mohamed E. Hussein, Wael AbdAlmageed
Keywords: adversarial machine learning, ensemble, mahalanobis distance
Abstract: We propose an ensemble-based defense against adversarial examples using distance map layers (DMLs). Similar to fully connected layers, DMLs can be used to output logits for a multi-class classification model. We show in this paper how DMLs can be deployed to prevent transferability  of attacks across ensemble members by adapting pairwise (almost) orthogonal covariance matrices. We also illustrate how DMLs provide an efficient way to regularize the Lipschitz constant of the ensemble's member models, which further boosts the resulting robustness. Through empirical evaluations across multiple datasets and attack models, we demonstrate that the ensembles based on DMLs can achieve high benign accuracy while exhibiting robustness against adversarial attacks using multiple white-box techniques along with AutoAttack.