Trojan Prompt Attacks on Graph Neural Networks

Kavli Affiliate: Xiang Zhang

| First 5 Authors: Minhua Lin, Zhiwei Zhang, Enyan Dai, Zongyu Wu, Yilong Wang

| Summary:

Graph Prompt Learning (GPL) has been introduced as a promising approach that
uses prompts to adapt pre-trained GNN models to specific downstream tasks
without requiring fine-tuning of the entire model. Despite the advantages of
GPL, little attention has been given to its vulnerability to backdoor attacks,
where an adversary can manipulate the model’s behavior by embedding hidden
triggers. Existing graph backdoor attacks rely on modifying model parameters
during training, but this approach is impractical in GPL as GNN encoder
parameters are frozen after pre-training. Moreover, downstream users may
fine-tune their own task models on clean datasets, further complicating the
attack. In this paper, we propose TGPA, a backdoor attack framework designed
specifically for GPL. TGPA injects backdoors into graph prompts without
modifying pre-trained GNN encoders and ensures high attack success rates and
clean accuracy. To address the challenge of model fine-tuning by users, we
introduce a finetuning-resistant poisoning approach that maintains the
effectiveness of the backdoor even after downstream model adjustments.
Extensive experiments on multiple datasets under various settings demonstrate
the effectiveness of TGPA in compromising GPL models with fixed GNN encoders.

| Search Query: ArXiv Query: search_query=au:”Xiang Zhang”&id_list=&start=0&max_results=3

Read More