English

Exact Certification of Data-Poisoning Attacks Using Mixed-Integer Programming

Machine Learning 2026-02-20 v1

Abstract

This work introduces a verification framework that provides both sound and complete guarantees for data poisoning attacks during neural network training. We formulate adversarial data manipulation, model training, and test-time evaluation in a single mixed-integer quadratic programming (MIQCP) problem. Finding the global optimum of the proposed formulation provably yields worst-case poisoning attacks, while simultaneously bounding the effectiveness of all possible attacks on the given training pipeline. Our framework encodes both the gradient-based training dynamics and model evaluation at test time, enabling the first exact certification of training-time robustness. Experimental evaluation on small models confirms that our approach delivers a complete characterization of robustness against data poisoning.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.16944,
  title  = {Exact Certification of Data-Poisoning Attacks Using Mixed-Integer Programming},
  author = {Philip Sosnin and Jodie Knapp and Fraser Kennedy and Josh Collyer and Calvin Tsay},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.16944},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Accepted to the 23rd International Conference on the Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research (CPAIOR)

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:42:14.731Z