BadBone: Backdoor Attacks Against Backbone Models in Visual Prompt Learning

BadBone is a backdoor attack (a type of hidden vulnerability where an attacker secretly compromises a model to make it misbehave on specific tasks) that targets backbone models (large pre-trained neural networks that serve as the foundation for smaller AI systems) used in prompt learning (a technique where users guide AI behavior by providing example inputs called prompts). The attack is stealthy because it hides the backdoor in the backbone model rather than in the prompt learning process itself, so downstream tasks using prompt learning inherit the vulnerability while the model appears to work normally. Testing shows that current security defenses against backdoors are largely ineffective against BadBone, indicating the need for stronger protections.