# Vertical Federated Learning: Concepts, Advances and Challenges

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.12814 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12814/

## Key facts

- Cited by 108 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 95 of its 207 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Nov 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 95)

- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Explaining and Harnessing Adversarial Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6572/) (2014)
- [Advances and Open Problems in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04977/) (2019)
- [CheXpert: A Large Chest Radiograph Dataset with Uncertainty Labels and Expert Comparison](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.07031/) (2019)
- [Deep Leakage from Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.08935/) (2019)
- [Deep Gradient Compression: Reducing the Communication Bandwidth for Distributed Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01887/) (2017)
- [Towards Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00710/) (2021)
- [A Survey on Federated Learning Systems: Vision, Hype and Reality for Data Privacy and Protection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.09693/) (2019)
- [FedML: A Research Library and Benchmark for Federated Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.13518/) (2020)
- [Sparse Communication for Distributed Gradient Descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.05021/) (2017)
- [Private federated learning on vertically partitioned data via entity resolution and additively homomorphic encryption](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10677/) (2017)
- [SecureBoost: A Lossless Federated Learning Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.08755/) (2019)
- [Federated Learning for Open Banking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10749/) (2021)
- [Federated Learning for Wireless Communications: Motivation, Opportunities and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.06847/) (2019)
- [A Principled Approach to Data Valuation for Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.06192/) (2020)
- [Feature Inference Attack on Model Predictions in Vertical Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.10152/) (2020)
- [Unsupervised Learning by Predicting Noise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.05310/) (2017)
- [Label Leakage and Protection in Two-party Split Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.08504/) (2021)
- [Privacy Preserving Vertical Federated Learning for Tree-based Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.06170/) (2020)
- [VAFL: a Method of Vertical Asynchronous Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.06081/) (2020)
- [Byzantine Stochastic Gradient Descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.08917/) (2018)
- [Measure Contribution of Participants in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.08525/) (2019)
- [Overlearning Reveals Sensitive Attributes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11742/) (2019)
- [CAFE: Catastrophic Data Leakage in Vertical Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.15122/) (2021)
- [GTG-Shapley: Efficient and Accurate Participant Contribution Evaluation in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02053/) (2021)
- [Adaptive Quantization of Model Updates for Communication-Efficient Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.04487/) (2021)
- [Vertically Federated Graph Neural Network for Privacy-Preserving Node Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.11903/) (2020)
- [AttriGuard: A Practical Defense Against Attribute Inference Attacks via Adversarial Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04810/) (2018)
- [Federated Bandit: A Gossiping Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.12763/) (2020)
- [Parallel Distributed Logistic Regression for Vertical Federated Learning without Third-Party Coordinator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.09824/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 108)

- [A Survey on Vertical Federated Learning: From a Layered Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01829/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Trustworthy Federated Learning with Perspectives on Security, Robustness, and Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10637/) (2023)
- [Vertical Federated Knowledge Transfer via Representation Distillation for Healthcare Collaboration Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05675/) (2023)
- [Advances in APPFL: A Comprehensive and Extensible Federated Learning Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11585/) (2024)
- [Vertical Federated Learning: A Structured Literature Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00622/) (2022)
- [A Simple Data Augmentation for Feature Distribution Skewed Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.09363/) (2023)
- [FedHCA2: Towards Hetero-Client Federated Multi-Task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13250/) (2023)
- [Vertical Federated Learning for Effectiveness, Security, Applicability: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17495/) (2024)
- [Non-IID data in Federated Learning: A Survey with Taxonomy, Metrics, Methods, Frameworks and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.12377/) (2024)
- [FedPass: Privacy-Preserving Vertical Federated Deep Learning with Adaptive Obfuscation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12623/) (2023)
- [ZooPFL: Exploring Black-box Foundation Models for Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.05143/) (2023)
- [FedProK: Trustworthy Federated Class-Incremental Learning via Prototypical Feature Knowledge Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.02685/) (2024)
- [Exploring the Vulnerabilities of Federated Learning: A Deep Dive into Gradient Inversion Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11514/) (2025)
- [VFLAIR: A Research Library and Benchmark for Vertical Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.09827/) (2023)
- [A Comprehensive Survey of Federated Transfer Learning: Challenges, Methods and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.01387/) (2024)
- [Robust and IP-Protecting Vertical Federated Learning against Unexpected Quitting of Parties](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.18178/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Privacy Threats and Defense in Vertical Federated Learning: From Model Life Cycle Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03688/) (2024)
- [A Privacy-Preserving Federated Framework with Hybrid Quantum-Enhanced Learning for Financial Fraud Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.22908/) (2025)
- [Universal Adversarial Backdoor Attacks to Fool Vertical Federated Learning in Cloud-Edge Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.11432/) (2023)
- [VertiBench: Advancing Feature Distribution Diversity in Vertical Federated Learning Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02040/) (2023)
- [Communication-Efficient Hybrid Federated Learning for E-health with Horizontal and Vertical Data Partitioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10110/) (2024)
- [Vertical Federated Learning with Missing Features During Training and Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22564/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Contribution Evaluation in Vertical Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.02364/) (2024)
- [Towards Privacy-Guaranteed Label Unlearning in Vertical Federated Learning: Few-Shot Forgetting without Disclosure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10922/) (2024)
- [Multiplayer Federated Learning: Reaching Equilibrium with Less Communication](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.08263/) (2025)
- [UniTrans: A Unified Vertical Federated Knowledge Transfer Framework for Enhancing Cross-Hospital Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.11388/) (2025)
- [FBFL: A Field-Based Coordination Approach for Data Heterogeneity in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08577/) (2025)
- [Vertical Federated Learning in Practice: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08160/) (2025)
- [Towards Harnessing the Collaborative Power of Large and Small Models for Domain Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.17421/) (2025)
- [A Multi-Token Coordinate Descent Method for Semi-Decentralized Vertical Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09977/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Vertical Federated Learning (VFL) is a federated learning setting where multiple parties with different features about the same set of users jointly train machine learning models without exposing their raw data or model parameters. Motivated by the rapid growth in VFL research and real-world applications, we provide a comprehensive review of the concept and algorithms of VFL, as well as current advances and challenges in various aspects, including effectiveness, efficiency, and privacy. We provide an exhaustive categorization for VFL settings and privacy-preserving protocols and comprehensively analyze the privacy attacks and defense strategies for each protocol. In the end, we propose a unified framework, termed VFLow, which considers the VFL problem under communication, computation, privacy, as well as effectiveness and fairness constraints. Finally, we review the most recent advances in industrial applications, highlighting open challenges and future directions for VFL.