arXiv:2606.12251cs.LGcs.AI2026-06

用强化学习训练模型,让攻击者无法依赖梯度有效攻击。

Reinforcement Learning Disrupts Gradient-Based Adversarial Optimization

论文配图:Reinforcement Learning Disrupts Gradient-Based Adversarial Optimization
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 用策略梯度和探索机制训练分类器,破坏攻击者依赖的梯度结构。
  • 在多个数据集上,梯度攻击(如PGD)在合理迭代次数内失效。
  • 适合关注模型鲁棒性、对抗攻击防御的研究者与实践者。

梯度基对抗攻击仍是深度神经网络的主要威胁,因其利用梯度信息高效优化扰动。为应对这一问题,我们研究强化学习(RL)训练是否可通过策略梯度目标和epsilon-greedy探索破坏攻击者依赖的梯度结构。在CIFAR-10、CIFAR-100和ImageNet-100上,使用多种架构进行系统实验,发现RL训练的分类器显著扰乱梯度基对抗优化。通过损失曲面可视化、静态与动态梯度指标及预测熵分析,揭示了RL作为隐式正则化器,使模型梯度方向高度不稳定且幅值更小。这导致每一步PGD攻击既方向不可靠又幅度受限,使攻击在实际迭代预算下失败。进一步表明,将RL与对抗训练结合(RL-adv)形成双层防御:RL削弱攻击可获取的梯度信息(梯度级防御),对抗训练强化决策边界(边界级防御)。在各类主要攻击(包括梯度基、迁移基、查询基)中,RL-adv表现最优,显著优于标准对抗训练(SL-adv)。这些发现确认了RL引发的梯度干扰是一种互补的鲁棒性机制,推动未来混合监督-强化学习训练方案的研究。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Gradient-based adversarial attacks remain a dominant threat to deep neural networks (DNNs), as they exploit gradient information to efficiently optimize adversarial perturbations. To address this, we investigate whether reinforcement learning (RL) training can disrupt the gradient structure used by attackers by training image classifiers with policy-gradient objectives and epsilon-greedy exploration. Through systematic experiments across CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, and ImageNet-100 with multiple architectures, we find that RL-trained classifiers significantly disrupt gradient-based adversarial optimization. To explain this, we conduct a comprehensive mechanism analysis using loss landscape visualization, static and dynamic gradient indicators, and predictive entropy. Our analysis reveals that RL acts as an implicit regularizer, producing models with highly unstable gradient directions and smaller gradient magnitudes. This combination makes each PGD step both unreliable in direction and limited in magnitude, causing gradient-based attacks to fail within practical iteration budgets. We further show that combining RL with adversarial training (RL-adv) provides a dual-layer defense operating at two complementary levels: RL degrades gradient information available to attackers (gradient-level defense), while adversarial training strengthens decision boundaries (boundary-level defense). RL-adv achieves the highest robustness across all major attack types evaluated, including gradient-based (PGD, AutoAttack), transfer-based, and query-based attacks, outperforming SL-adv by a significant margin. These findings identify RL-induced gradient disruption as a complementary robustness mechanism and motivate future research on hybrid SL-RL training schedules that combine SL's efficiency with RL's gradient-regularization properties.

对抗攻击强化学习模型鲁棒性防御机制

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