Backdoors in Machine Learning Models
Miseducation

Machine learning can be maliciously manipulated – we'll show you how.
Interest in machine learning has grown incredibly quickly over the past 20 years due to major advances in speech recognition and automatic text translation. Recent developments (such as generating text and images, as well as solving mathematical problems) have shown the potential of learning systems. Because of these advances, machine learning is also increasingly used in safety-critical applications. In autonomous driving, for example, or in access systems that evaluate biometric characteristics. Machine learning is never error-free, however, and wrong decisions can sometimes lead to life-threatening situations. The limitations of machine learning are very well known and are usually taken into account when developing and integrating machine learning models. For a long time, however, less attention has been paid to what happens when someone tries to manipulate the model intentionally.
Adversarial Examples
Experts have raised the alarm about the possibility of adversarial examples [1] – specifically manipulated images that can fool even state-of-the-art image recognition systems (Figure 1). In the most dangerous case, people cannot even perceive a difference between the adversarial example and the original image from which it was computed. The model correctly identifies the original, but it fails to correctly classify the adversial example. Even the category in which you want the adversial example to be erroneously classified can be predetermined. Developments [2] in adversarial examples have shown that you can also manipulate the texture of objects in our reality such that a model misclassifies the manipulated objects – even when viewed from different directions and distances.

[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
CIQ Releases Security-Hardened Version of Rocky Linux
If you're looking for an enterprise-grade Linux distribution that is hardened for business use, there's a new version of Rocky Linux that's sure to make you and your company happy.
-
Gnome’s Dash to Panel Extension Gets a Massive Update
If you're a fan of the Gnome Dash to Panel extension, you'll be thrilled to hear that a new version has been released with a dock mode.
-
Blender App Makes it to the Big Screen
The animated film "Flow" won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards held on March 2, 2025 and Blender was a part of it.
-
Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.
-
Ubuntu 25.04 Coming Soon
Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) has been given an April release date with many notable updates.
-
Gnome Developers Consider Dropping RPM Support
In a move that might shock a lot of users, the Gnome development team has proposed the idea of going straight up Flatpak.
-
openSUSE Tumbleweed Ditches AppArmor for SELinux
If you're an openSUSE Tumbleweed user, you can expect a major change to the distribution.
-
Plasma 6.3 Now Available
Plasma desktop v6.3 has a couple of pretty nifty tricks up its sleeve.
-
LibreOffice 25.2 Has Arrived
If you've been hoping for a release that offers more UI customizations, you're in for a treat.