Blind Backdoors in Deep Learning Models

We investigate a new method for injecting backdoors into machine learning models, based on poisoning the loss-value computation in the model-training code. We use it to demonstrate new classes of backdoors strictly more powerful than those in prior literature: single-pixel and physical backdoors in ImageNet models, backdoors that switch the model to a covert, privacy-violating task, and backdoors that do not require inference-time input modifications. Our attack is blind: the attacker cannot modify the training data, nor observe the execution of his code, nor access the resulting model. Blind backdoor training uses multi-objective optimization to achieve high accuracy on both the main and backdoor tasks. Finally, we show how the blind attack can evade all known defenses, and propose new ones.