Adversary Detection in Neural Networks via Persistent Homology
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Abstract (arXiv)
We outline a detection method for adversarial inputs to deep neural networks. By viewing neural network computations as graphs upon which information flows from input space to out- put distribution, we compare the differences in graphs induced by different inputs. Specifically, by applying persistent homology to these induced graphs, we observe that the structure of the most persistent subgraphs which generate the first homology group differ between adversarial and unperturbed inputs. Based on this observation, we build a detection algorithm that depends only on the topological information extracted during training. We test our algorithm on MNIST and achieve 98% detection adversary accuracy with F1-score 0.98.
Key facts. Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 28 Nov 2017.
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Citing papers per year: 2021: 3; 2022: 2; 2023: 1; 2024: 3; 2025: 2; 2026: 1.
12 papers.
- 2021Topological Detection of Trojaned Neural Networkscited by 34
- 2021Topological Uncertainty: Monitoring trained neural networks through persistence of activation graphscited by 20
- 2022Topology and geometry of data manifold in deep learningcited by 12
- 2024Diffeomorphic interpolation for efficient persistence-based topological optimizationcited by 6
- 2022An Adversarial Robustness Perspective on the Topology of Neural Networkscited by 3
- 2023A topological classifier to characterize brain states: When shape matters more than variancecited by 1
- 2024Be Persistent: Towards a Unified Solution for Mitigating Shortcuts in Deep Learningcited by 1
- 2025Topology of Out-of-Distribution Examples in Deep Neural Networkscited by 1
- 2021Leveraging The Topological Consistencies of Learning in Deep Neural Networkscited by 0
- 2024Characterization of topological structures in different neural network architecturescited by 0
- 2025TopoReformer: Mitigating Adversarial Attacks Using Topological Purification in OCR Modelscited by 0
- 2026How fine a change can moments see? A scale law for detecting distribution shift, with a kernel calibration rulecited by 0
- 2026How fine a change can moments see? A scale law for detecting distribution shift, with a kernel calibration rule2 Aug 2026
- 2025TopoReformer: Mitigating Adversarial Attacks Using Topological Purification in OCR Models19 Nov 2025
- 2025Topology of Out-of-Distribution Examples in Deep Neural Networks21 Jan 2025
- 2024Characterization of topological structures in different neural network architectures8 Jul 2024
- 2024Diffeomorphic interpolation for efficient persistence-based topological optimization29 May 2024
- 2024Be Persistent: Towards a Unified Solution for Mitigating Shortcuts in Deep Learning17 Feb 2024
- 2023A topological classifier to characterize brain states: When shape matters more than variance7 Mar 2023
- 2022An Adversarial Robustness Perspective on the Topology of Neural Networks4 Nov 2022
- 2022Topology and geometry of data manifold in deep learning19 Apr 2022
- 2021Leveraging The Topological Consistencies of Learning in Deep Neural Networks30 Nov 2021
- 2021Topological Detection of Trojaned Neural Networks11 Jun 2021
- 2021Topological Uncertainty: Monitoring trained neural networks through persistence of activation graphs7 May 2021