Random Logit Scaling: Defending Deep Neural Networks Against Black-Box Score-Based Adversarial Example Attacks

arXiv:2607.14921 · cs.LG, cs.AI, cs.CR · Submitted 2026-07-16 · Read on arXiv

Hamid Dashtbani, Mehdi Dousti Gandomani, AmirMahdi Sadeghzadeh

cs.LG, cs.AI, cs.CR

Submitted: 2026-07-16

Comments: Accepted at Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR)

Code: https://github.com/HamidDasht/RLS-adversarial-defense

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: Machine learning models are increasingly adapted in various domains.

Terminology

Abstract

Machine learning models are increasingly adapted in various domains. However, adversarial examples pose a significant threat to the reliable deployment of these models. In recent years, some powerful adversarial example attacks have been proposed for the fast and query-efficient generation of adversarial examples, even in black-box scenarios, highlighting the need for scalable, low-cost, and powerful defenses. In this work, we present two contributions to the domain of black-box adversarial example attacks and defenses. First, we propose Random Logit Scaling (RLS), a randomization-based defense against black-box score-based adversarial example attacks. RLS is a plug-and-play, post-processing defense that can be implemented on top of any existing ML model with minimal effort. The idea behind RLS is to confuse an attacker by outputting falsified scores resulting from randomly scaled logits while maintaining the model accuracy. We show that RLS significantly reduces the success rate of state-of-the-art black-box score-based attacks while preserving the accuracy and minimizing confidence score distortion compared to state-of-the-art randomization-based defenses. Second, we introduce a novel adaptive attack against AAA, a SOTA non-randomized black-box defense against black-box score-based attacks that also modifies output logits to confuse attackers, demonstrating its vulnerability against adaptive attacks.

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