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Multi-modal large language models (MLLMs) extend large language models (LLMs) to process multi-modal information, enabling them to generate responses to image-text inputs. MLLMs have been incorporated into diverse multi-modal applications,…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-03-21 Zenghui Yuan , Jiawen Shi , Pan Zhou , Neil Zhenqiang Gong , Lichao Sun

Backdoor attacks pose severe security threats to large language models (LLMs), where a model behaves normally under benign inputs but produces malicious outputs when a hidden trigger appears. Existing backdoor removal methods typically…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-03-17 Jianwei Li , Jung-Eun Kim

Despite the strong multimodal performance, large vision-language models (LVLMs) are vulnerable during fine-tuning to backdoor attacks, where adversaries insert trigger-embedded samples into the training data to implant behaviors that can be…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2026-03-16 Zhifang Zhang , Bojun Yang , Shuo He , Weitong Chen , Wei Emma Zhang , Olaf Maennel , Lei Feng , Miao Xu

Poisoning of data sets is a potential security threat to large language models that can lead to backdoored models. A description of the internal mechanisms of backdoored language models and how they process trigger inputs, e.g., when…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-07 Max Lamparth , Anka Reuel

Practitioners have consistently observed three puzzling phenomena in transformer-based large language models (LLMs): attention sinks, value-state drains, and residual-state peaks, collectively referred to as extreme-token phenomena. These…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-08 Tianyu Guo , Druv Pai , Yu Bai , Jiantao Jiao , Michael I. Jordan , Song Mei

Pre-trained language models have achieved remarkable success across a wide range of natural language processing (NLP) tasks, particularly when fine-tuned on large, domain-relevant datasets. However, they remain vulnerable to backdoor…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-02-02 Anindya Sundar Das , Kangjie Chen , Monowar Bhuyan

With the integration of an additional modality, large vision-language models (LVLMs) exhibit greater vulnerability to safety risks (e.g., jailbreaking) compared to their language-only predecessors. Although recent studies have devoted…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-07 Ziwei Zheng , Junyao Zhao , Le Yang , Lijun He , Fan Li

Large language models (LLMs) have exhibited remarkable versatility and adaptability, while their widespread adoption across various applications also raises critical safety concerns. This paper focuses on the impact of backdoored LLMs.…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-09-03 Jiyang Qiu , Xinbei Ma , Zhuosheng Zhang , Hai Zhao , Yun Li , Qianren Wang

Instruction tuning enhances large vision-language models (LVLMs) but increases their vulnerability to backdoor attacks due to their open design. Unlike prior studies in static settings, this paper explores backdoor attacks in LVLM…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2024-12-17 Siyuan Liang , Jiawei Liang , Tianyu Pang , Chao Du , Aishan Liu , Mingli Zhu , Xiaochun Cao , Dacheng Tao

The advent of Large Language Models (LLMs) has marked significant achievements in language processing and reasoning capabilities. Despite their advancements, LLMs face vulnerabilities to data poisoning attacks, where the adversary inserts…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-30 Xiangyu Zhou , Yao Qiang , Saleh Zare Zade , Mohammad Amin Roshani , Prashant Khanduri , Douglas Zytko , Dongxiao Zhu

Backdoor attacks undermine the reliability and trustworthiness of machine learning systems by injecting hidden behaviors that can be maliciously activated at inference time. While such threats have been extensively studied in unimodal…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2025-11-25 Juncheng Li , Yige Li , Hanxun Huang , Yunhao Chen , Xin Wang , Yixu Wang , Xingjun Ma , Yu-Gang Jiang

Backdoor vulnerabilities widely exist in the fine-tuning of large language models(LLMs). Most backdoor poisoning methods operate mainly at the token level and lack deeper semantic manipulation, which limits stealthiness. In addition, Prior…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Ziyu Liu , Tao Li , Tianjie Ni , Xiaolong Lan , Wengang Ma , Tao Yang , Guohua Wang , Junjiang He

Large language model (LLM) unlearning has become a critical mechanism for removing undesired data, knowledge, or behaviors from pre-trained models while retaining their general utility. Yet, with the rise of open-weight LLMs, we ask: can…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-21 Bingqi Shang , Yiwei Chen , Yihua Zhang , Bingquan Shen , Sijia Liu

Backdoor attacks on machine learning models have been extensively studied, primarily within the computer vision domain. Originally, these attacks manipulated classifiers to generate incorrect outputs in the presence of specific, often…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-25 Sharon Lin , Krishnamurthy , Dvijotham , Jamie Hayes , Chongyang Shi , Ilia Shumailov , Shuang Song

Large Language Models (LLMs) have greatly advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP), particularly through instruction tuning, which enables broad task generalization without additional fine-tuning. However, their reliance on large-scale…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-04-21 San Kim , Gary Geunbae Lee

Backdoor attacks pose a serious threat to the secure deployment of large language models (LLMs), enabling adversaries to implant hidden behaviors triggered by specific inputs. However, existing methods often rely on manually crafted…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-11-24 Yige Li , Zhe Li , Wei Zhao , Nay Myat Min , Hanxun Huang , Xingjun Ma , Jun Sun

Backdoor attacks on language models pose a growing security concern, yet the internal mechanisms by which a trigger sequence hijacks model computations remain poorly understood. We identify a circuit underlying a language-switching backdoor…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Francis Kulumba , Wissam Antoun , Théo Lasnier , Benoît Sagot , Djamé Seddah

The Large Language Models (LLMs) are poised to offer efficient and intelligent services for future mobile communication networks, owing to their exceptional capabilities in language comprehension and generation. However, the extremely high…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-09-07 Haomiao Yang , Kunlan Xiang , Mengyu Ge , Hongwei Li , Rongxing Lu , Shui Yu

Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved significantly advanced capabilities in understanding and generating human language text, which have gained increasing popularity over recent years. Apart from their state-of-the-art natural…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-02-11 Yihe Zhou , Tao Ni , Wei-Bin Lee , Qingchuan Zhao

Early research into data poisoning attacks against Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrated the ease with which backdoors could be injected. More recent LLMs add step-by-step reasoning, expanding the attack surface to include the…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-09-09 Hanna Foerster , Ilia Shumailov , Yiren Zhao , Harsh Chaudhari , Jamie Hayes , Robert Mullins , Yarin Gal