Extracting Private Training Data in Federated Learning from Clients

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
File version

Accepted Manuscript (AM)

Author(s)
Wei, J
Zhang, Y
Zhang, LY
Chen, C
Pan, S
Ong, KL
Zhang, J
Xiang, Y
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
2025
Size
File type(s)
Location
License
Abstract

The utilization of machine learning algorithms in distributed web applications is experiencing significant growth. One notable approach is Federated Learning (FL) Recent research has brought attention to the vulnerability of FL to gradient inversion attacks, which seek to reconstruct the original training samples, posing a substantial threat to client privacy. Most existing gradient inversion attacks, however, require control over the central server and rely on substantial prior knowledge, including information about batch normalization and data distribution. In this study, we introduce Poisoning Gradient Leakage from Client (PGLC), a novel attack method that operates from the clients’ side. For the first time, we demonstrate the feasibility of a client-side adversary with limited knowledge successfully recovering training samples from the aggregated global model. Our approach enables the adversary to employ a malicious model that increases the loss of a specific targeted class of interest. When honest clients employ the poisoned global model, the gradients of samples become distinct in the aggregated update. This allows the adversary to effectively reconstruct private inputs from other clients using the aggregated update. Furthermore, our PGLC attack exhibits stealthiness against Byzantine-robust aggregation rules (AGRs). Through the optimization of malicious updates and the blending of benign updates with a malicious replacement vector, our method remains undetected by these defense mechanisms. We conducted experiments across various benchmark datasets, considering representative Byzantine-robust AGRs and exploring different FL settings with varying levels of adversary knowledge about the data. Our results consistently demonstrate the ability of PGLC to extract training data in all tested scenarios.

Journal Title

IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security

Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume
Issue
Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement

This work is covered by copyright. You must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the document is available under a specified licence, refer to the licence for details of permitted re-use. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please make a copyright takedown request using the form at https://www.griffith.edu.au/copyright-matters.

Item Access Status
Note

This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advance online version.

Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject

Engineering

Information and computing sciences

Persistent link to this record
Citation

Wei, J; Zhang, Y; Zhang, LY; Chen, C; Pan, S; Ong, KL; Zhang, J; Xiang, Y, Extracting Private Training Data in Federated Learning from Clients, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 2025

Collections