The Hidden Adversarial Vulnerabilities of Medical Federated Learning
Erfan Darzi Florian Dubost Nanna. M. Sijtsema P. M. A van Ooijen
In this paper, we delve into the susceptibility of federated medical image
analysis systems to adversarial attacks. Our analysis uncovers a novel
exploitation avenue: using gradient information from prior global model
updates, adversaries can enhance the efficiency and transferability of their
attacks. Specifically, we demonstrate that single-step attacks (e.g. FGSM),
when aptly initialized, can outperform the efficiency of their iterative
counterparts but with reduced computational demand. Our findings underscore the
need to revisit our understanding of AI security in federated healthcare
settings.