Adapting Few-Shot Classification via In-Process Defense

Most few-shot learning methods employ either adaptive approaches or parameter amortization techniques. However, their reliance on pre-trained models presents a significant vulnerability. When an attacker’s trigger activates a hidden backdoor, it may result in the misclassification of images, profoundly affecting the model’s performance. In our research, we explore adaptive defenses against backdoor attacks for few-shot learning. We introduce a specialized stochastic process tailored to task characteristics that safeguards the classification model against attack-induced incorrect feature extraction. This process functions during forward propagation and is thus termed an “in-process defense.” Our method employs an adaptive strategy, effectively generating task-level representations, enabling rapid adaptation to pre-trained models, and proving effective in few-shot classification scenarios for countering backdoor attacks. We apply latent stochastic processes to approximate task distributions and derive task-level representations from the support set. This task-level representation guides feature extraction, leading to backdoor trigger mismatching and forming the foundation of our parameter defense strategy. Benchmark tests on Meta-Dataset reveal that our approach not only withstands backdoor attacks but also shows an improved adaptation in addressing few-shot classification tasks.