# A Survey of Adversarial Defenses in Vision-based Systems: Categorization, Methods and Challenges

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.00384 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.00384/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 112 of its 172 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 112)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [Explaining and Harnessing Adversarial Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6572/) (2014)
- [Towards Deep Learning Models Resistant to Adversarial Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.06083/) (2017)
- [Intriguing properties of neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.6199/) (2013)
- [Fashion-MNIST: a Novel Image Dataset for Benchmarking Machine Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07747/) (2017)
- [Towards Evaluating the Robustness of Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.04644/) (2016)
- [Adversarial examples in the physical world](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.02533/) (2016)
- [Certified Adversarial Robustness via Randomized Smoothing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.02918/) (2019)
- [DeepFool: a simple and accurate method to fool deep neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04599/) (2015)
- [Adversarial Machine Learning at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.01236/) (2016)
- [The Limitations of Deep Learning in Adversarial Settings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.07528/) (2015)
- [Distillation as a Defense to Adversarial Perturbations against Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04508/) (2015)
- [Stealing Machine Learning Models via Prediction APIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.02943/) (2016)
- [Adversarial Patch](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.09665/) (2017)
- [Feature Squeezing: Detecting Adversarial Examples in Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.01155/) (2017)
- [Defense-GAN: Protecting Classifiers Against Adversarial Attacks Using Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.06605/) (2018)
- [Defense against Adversarial Attacks Using High-Level Representation Guided Denoiser](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.02976/) (2017)
- [Parseval Networks: Improving Robustness to Adversarial Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.08847/) (2017)
- [MagNet: a Two-Pronged Defense against Adversarial Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.09064/) (2017)
- [Fooling automated surveillance cameras: adversarial patches to attack person detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.08653/) (2019)
- [Adversarial Attacks and Defences: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.00069/) (2018)
- [Vision Transformers are Robust Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.07581/) (2021)
- [Physical Adversarial Examples for Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.07769/) (2018)
- [ShapeShifter: Robust Physical Adversarial Attack on Faster R-CNN Object Detector](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.05810/) (2018)
- [Making an Invisibility Cloak: Real World Adversarial Attacks on Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.14667/) (2019)
- [Summary of ChatGPT-Related Research and Perspective Towards the Future of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01852/) (2023)
- [DPatch: An Adversarial Patch Attack on Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.02299/) (2018)
- [xView: Objects in Context in Overhead Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07856/) (2018)
- [Dual Attention Suppression Attack: Generate Adversarial Camouflage in Physical World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01050/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [A Comprehensive Review of One-Pixel Attack: Research Status, Taxonomy, Applications, Regulation Policy and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.00125/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Adversarial attacks have emerged as a major challenge to the trustworthy deployment of machine learning models, particularly in computer vision applications. These attacks have a varied level of potency and can be implemented in both white box and black box approaches. Practical attacks include methods to manipulate the physical world and enforce adversarial behaviour by the corresponding target neural network models. Multiple different approaches to mitigate different kinds of such attacks are available in the literature, each with their own advantages and limitations. In this survey, we present a comprehensive systematization of knowledge on adversarial defenses, focusing on two key computer vision tasks: image classification and object detection. We review the state-of-the-art adversarial defense techniques and categorize them for easier comparison. In addition, we provide a schematic representation of these categories within the context of the overall machine learning pipeline, facilitating clearer understanding and benchmarking of defenses. Furthermore, we map these defenses to the types of adversarial attacks and datasets where they are most effective, offering practical insights for researchers and practitioners. This study is necessary for understanding the scope of how the available defenses are able to address the adversarial threats, and their shortcomings as well, which is necessary for driving the research in this area in the most appropriate direction, with the aim of building trustworthy AI systems for regular practical use-cases.