Coordinated Jamming and Poisoning Attack Detection and Mitigation in Wireless Federated Learning Networks

Wireless Federated Learning (FL) is a distributed Artificial Intelligence (AI) framework, enabling decision-making at the network edge where data are generated. However, wireless transmissions of model updates from edge nodes to the coordinating server are vulnerable to jamming, alongside the inherent risk of poisoning the learning process. In this paper, we tackle the problem of coordinated jamming and poisoning attacks in wireless FL networks, where malicious edge nodes disrupt transmissions of legitimate local model updates to the cloud server while injecting poisoned model updates to manipulate the global model. To this end, we introduce two complementary mechanisms operating alternately. First, a robust global model aggregation algorithm is developed to address poisoning attacks by weighting edge nodes’ local model updates using a novel contribution index. The calculation of the index is inspired by the Shapley value, but it offers polynomial complexity compared to existing methods. Subsequently, a distributed power control solution for jamming attack mitigation in the uplink of the FL network is introduced based on Bayesian games with incomplete information. Both legitimate and malicious nodes aim to successfully transmit their model parameters, minimizing transmission power and time to the server, while having probabilistic knowledge about the malicious behavior of the other nodes in the game. The proposed unified approach and each individual mechanism are assessed via modeling and simulation, verifying their effectiveness in mitigating both attacks while achieving a good tradeoff between global model accuracy and consumed time and energy compared to state-of-the-art approaches.