Trigger inversion

Optimize input that makes model output target class with high confidence. If small perturbation triggers → likely backdoor. Neural Cleanse.

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Activation clustering

Compare activations on clean vs suspicious data. Backdoor causes distinctive activation patterns. Chen et al 2019.

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Behavioral tests

Test model on rare trigger candidates: random tokens, foreign characters, emojis. Anomalous responses flag suspicion.

Meta's Autoencoder-based

Meta 2024: autoencoder over activations flags out-of-distribution behavior indicative of backdoor triggering.