# DCMorph: Face Morphing via Dual-Stream Cross-Attention Diffusion

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.21627 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.21627/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Robustness, privacy and adversarial aspects, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 34 of its 50 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Apr 2026.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Robustness, privacy and adversarial aspects](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/robustness-privacy-and-adversarial-aspects/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01952/) (2023)
- [IP-Adapter: Text Compatible Image Prompt Adapter for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.06721/) (2023)
- [Diffusion Autoencoders: Toward a Meaningful and Decodable Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.15640/) (2021)
- [AdaFace: Quality Adaptive Margin for Face Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.00964/) (2022)
- [CurricularFace: Adaptive Curriculum Learning Loss for Deep Face Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00288/) (2020)
- [ElasticFace: Elastic Margin Loss for Deep Face Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.09416/) (2021)
- [DCFace: Synthetic Face Generation with Dual Condition Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07060/) (2023)
- [IDiff-Face: Synthetic-based Face Recognition through Fizzy Identity-Conditioned Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04995/) (2023)
- [Understanding the Impact of Negative Prompts: When and How Do They Take Effect?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02965/) (2024)
- [Privacy-friendly Synthetic Data for the Development of Face Morphing Attack Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06691/) (2022)
- [Can GAN Generated Morphs Threaten Face Recognition Systems Equally as Landmark Based Morphs? -- Vulnerability and Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.03621/) (2020)
- [MorDIFF: Recognition Vulnerability and Attack Detectability of Face Morphing Attacks Created by Diffusion Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01843/) (2023)
- [Spherical Linear Interpolation and Text-Anchoring for Zero-shot Composed Image Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.00571/) (2024)
- [Norm-guided latent space exploration for text-to-image generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.08687/) (2023)
- [MixFaceNets: Extremely Efficient Face Recognition Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.13046/) (2021)
- [SYN-MAD 2022: Competition on Face Morphing Attack Detection Based on Privacy-aware Synthetic Training Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.07337/) (2022)
- [On Discrete Prompt Optimization for Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.01606/) (2024)
- [ReGenMorph: Visibly Realistic GAN Generated Face Morphing Attacks by Attack Re-generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.09130/) (2021)
- [ID3: Identity-Preserving-yet-Diversified Diffusion Models for Synthetic Face Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17576/) (2024)
- [Unsupervised Face Morphing Attack Detection via Self-paced Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.05787/) (2022)
- [Leveraging Diffusion For Strong and High Quality Face Morphing Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04218/) (2023)
- [Facial Demorphing via Identity Preserving Image Decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.10993/) (2024)
- [MorCode: Face Morphing Attack Generation using Generative Codebooks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07625/) (2024)
- [dc-GAN: Dual-Conditioned GAN for Face Demorphing From a Single Morph](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14494/) (2024)
- [3D Face Morphing Attacks: Generation, Vulnerability and Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03454/) (2022)

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

- [EXPL-FR: Explaining Face Recognition Models via Vision-Language Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.21486/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Advancing face morphing attack techniques is crucial to anticipate evolving threats and develop robust defensive mechanisms for identity verification systems. This work introduces DCMorph, a dual-stream diffusion-based morphing framework that simultaneously operates at both identity conditioning and latent space levels. Unlike image-level methods suffering from blending artifacts or GAN-based approaches with limited reconstruction fidelity, DCMorph leverages identity-conditioned latent diffusion models through two mechanisms: (1) decoupled cross-attention interpolation that injects identity-specific features from both source faces into the denoising process, enabling explicit dual-identity conditioning absent in existing diffusion-based methods, and (2) DDIM inversion with spherical interpolation between inverted latent representations from both source faces, providing geometrically consistent initial latent representation that preserves structural attributes. Vulnerability analyses across four state-of-the-art face recognition systems demonstrate that DCMorph achieves the highest attack success rates compared to existing methods at both operational thresholds, while remaining challenging to detect by current morphing attack detection solutions.