A survey of security threats in federated learning

• DOI: 10.1007/s40747-024-01664-0
• Publication Date: 2025-01-29T09:49:01Z
• Authors: Yunhao Feng; Yanming Guo; Yinjian Hou; Yulun Wu; Mingrui Lao; Tianyuan Yu; Gang Liu
• Keywords: Robust model; Non-IID data; Electronic computers. Computer science; Federated learning; QA75.5-76.95; Information technology; T58.5-58.64; Trustworthy artificial intelligence

Abstract Federated learning is a distributed machine learning paradigm that emerged as a solution to the need for privacy protection in artificial intelligence. Like traditional machine learning, federated learning is threatened by multiple attacks, such as backdoor attacks, Byzantine attacks, and adversarial attacks. The weaknesses are exacerbated by the inaccessibility of data in federated learning, which makes it more difficult to defend against these threats. This points to the need for further research into defensive approaches to make federated learning a real solution for distributed machine learning paradigm with securing data privacy. Our survey provides a taxonomy of these threats and defense methods, describing the general situation of this vulnerability in federated learning. We also sort out the relationship between these methods, their advantages and disadvantages, and discuss future research directions regarding the security issues of federated learning from multiple perspectives.