FRIDA: Free-rider detection using privacy attacks

Federated learning is increasingly popular as it enables multiple parties with limited datasets and resources to train a machine learning model collaboratively. However, similar to other collaborative systems, federated learning is vulnerable to free-riders — participants who benefit from the global...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: García Recasens, Pol|||0009-0008-5535-0012, Horváth, Ádám, Gutiérrez Torre, Alberto|||0000-0002-5548-3359, Torres Viñals, Jordi|||0000-0003-1963-7418, Berral García, Josep Lluís|||0000-0003-3037-3580, Pejó, Balázs|||0000-0002-1825-9251
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2026
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/450566
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/450566
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2025.104357
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Federated learning
Free-riding
Privacy attacks
Membership inference
Property inference
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Intel·ligència artificial::Aprenentatge automàtic
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Seguretat informàtica
Descripción
Sumario:Federated learning is increasingly popular as it enables multiple parties with limited datasets and resources to train a machine learning model collaboratively. However, similar to other collaborative systems, federated learning is vulnerable to free-riders — participants who benefit from the global model without contributing. Free-riders compromise the integrity of the learning process and slow down the convergence of the global model, resulting in increased costs for honest participants. To address this challenge, we propose FRIDA: free-rider detection using privacy attacks. Instead of focusing on implicit effects of free-riding, FRIDA utilizes membership and property inference attacks to directly infer evidence of genuine client training. Our extensive evaluation demonstrates that FRIDA is effective across a wide range of scenarios.