Generative Adversarial

Networks (GANs)
 What Are Generative Adversarial Networks?

• Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are a powerful class of neural

networks that are used for unsupervised learning and Artificial Intelligence.
• The goal of generative modeling is to autonomously identify patterns in input
data, enabling the model to produce new examples that feasibly resemble the
original dataset.
• GANs are made up of two neural networks, a discriminator and a generator.
They use adversarial training to produce artificial data that is identical to
actual data.
• The Generator attempts to fool the Discriminator, which is tasked with
accurately distinguishing between produced and genuine data, by producing
random noise samples.
• Realistic, high-quality samples are produced as a result of this competitive
interaction, which drives both networks towards advancement.
 Architecture

Generator Model
• A key element responsible for creating fresh, accurate data in a Generative
Adversarial Network (GAN) is the generator model.
• The generator takes random noise as input and converts it into complex data
samples, such text or images.
• The generator adjusts its output to produce samples that closely mimic real
data as it is being trained by using backpropagation to fine-tune its parameters.
• The generator’s ability to generate high-quality, varied samples that can fool
the discriminator is what makes it successful.
 Architecture
Discriminator Model
• An artificial neural network called a discriminator model is used in Generative Adversarial
Networks (GANs) to differentiate between generated and actual input. By evaluating
input samples and allocating probability of authenticity, the discriminator functions as a
binary classifier.
• Over time, the discriminator learns to differentiate between genuine data from the
dataset and artificial samples created by the generator.
• This allows it to progressively hone its parameters and increase its level of proficiency.
Convolutional layers or pertinent structures for other modalities are usually used in its
architecture when dealing with picture data.
• The discriminator grows increasingly discriminating as a result of the generator and
discriminator’s interaction, which helps the GAN produce extremely realistic-looking
synthetic data overall.
ALGORITHMic IMPLEmentation
Full Code implementation on Google Colab: CLICK HERE
 Different Types of GAN Models

• Self Attention GAN (SAGAN)

• Vanilla GAN
• Conditional GAN (CGAN)
• Deep Convolutional GAN (DCGAN)
• Laplacian Pyramid GAN (LAPGAN)
• Super Resolution GAN (SRGAN)
 What challenges do GANs face?

MODE COLLAPSE
• Mode collapse happens when the generator focuses on producing a limited set
of data patterns that deceive the discriminator.
• It becomes fixated on a few dominant modes in the training data and fails to
capture the full diversity of the data distribution.
TRAINING INSTABILITY
• Several factors contribute to the instability of GAN training, including:
Vanishing gradients: The discriminator may become too powerful, leading to
vanishing gradients for the generator. This issue hampers the generator's
ability to learn and update its parameters effectively.
 Applications

GANs can be used to solve problems related to:

• Image Synthesis and Generation
• Image-to-Image Translation
• Text-to-Image Synthesis
• Data Augmentation
• Data Generation for Training
WAYS TO IMPROVE GANs
 Learning Rate Scheduling

• Implement learning rate scheduling for the optimizers. This can help
stabilize training and achieve better convergence.
 Weight Initialization

• Use a better weight initialization strategy.

• For example- Initializing the weights with a normal distribution (e.g.,
nn.init.normal_) can sometimes help with convergence.
 Architecture Tweaks

• Experiment with deeper or wider architectures for both the generator and
discriminator.
• Consider using transposed convolutions (nn.ConvTranspose2d) in the
generator instead of upsampling followed by convolutions.
 Spectral Normalization
• Spectral Normalization is a weight normalization technique that scales the
weights in a neural network layer by the largest singular value (also known as
the spectral norm) of the weight matrix.
• Spectral normalization to the discriminator's convolutional layers can help
stabilize training and prevent mode collapse.
 Loss Function Modification

• Explore alternative loss functions, such as Wasserstein loss, cross entropy,

etc, in combination with gradient penalties.
 Pros and Cons
ADVANTAGES:
• Synthetic data generation
• High-quality results
• Unsupervised learning
• Versatility
LIMITATIONS:
• Overfitting
• Computational cost
• Bias and Fairness
• Training instability
• It is a challenging task to ensure accountability, transparency and fairness in their
applications.
 MalGAN
"Generating Adversarial Malware Examples for Black-Box Attacks Based on GAN"
 INTRODUCTION

• MalGAN is capable of producing adversarial malware examples to evade

black-box machine learning-based malware detection systems.
• The authors highlight the vulnerability of machine learning algorithms to
intentional attacks and the motivation of malware authors to bypass
detection systems.
• They emphasize the limitations of traditional gradient-based adversarial
example generation algorithms and propose MalGAN as a more effective
solution.
ARCHITECTURE
 BLACK-BOX DETECTOR

• The black-box detector is an external system which adopts machine learning

based malware detection algorithms.
• We assume that the only thing malware authors know about the black-box
detector is what kind of features it uses.
• Malware authors do not know what machine learning algorithm it uses and do
not have access to the parameters of the trained model.
• Malware authors are able to get the detection results of their programs from
the black-box detector.
 WORKING

• MalGAN leverages a substitute detector to fit the black-box malware detection system
and uses a generative network to minimize the malicious probabilities predicted by the
substitute detector.
• The authors conducted experiments using a dataset of 180,000 programs and
demonstrated that MalGAN is successful in generating adversarial examples that
significantly reduce the detection rate to nearly zero.
• They also compared the performance of MalGAN with a gradient-based algorithm and
found that MalGAN outperforms the gradient-based approach by achieving nearly
zero true positive rates on both training and test sets.
 Training Procedure

• BBBenign is the set of programs that are recognized as benign by the black-box
detector, and BBMalware is the set of programs that are detected as malware
by the black-box detector.
• To train the substitute detector, LD should be minimized with respect to the
weights of the substitute detector.
• The loss function of the generator is defined in Formula 3.
Training Algorithm
 Impact of retraining the black-box detector
on the effectiveness of MalGAN
• The impact of retraining the black-box detector on the effectiveness of MalGAN is
significant. The document highlights that when the black-box detector is retrained on
adversarial examples generated by MalGAN, it is able to detect all adversarial examples,
resulting in a true positive rate (TPR) of close to 100% on both the training and test sets.
• However, once the updated black-box detector is released publicly, malware authors can
retrain MalGAN to attack the new black-box detector.
• This dynamic adversarial process allows the black-box detector to hardly detect any
malware again, as the TPR can be reduced from 100% to 0% within one epoch during
retraining MalGAN.
 More from the MalGAN research paper...

• Furthermore, the document emphasizes that the process of retraining the black-box
detector is time-consuming, as antivirus vendors need to collect enough adversarial
examples, label them, and retrain the detector.
• This provides adversarial malware examples with enough time to propagate before the
black-box detector is retrained and updated.
• Once the black-box detector is updated, malware authors can immediately retrain
MalGAN, and the experiments showed that retraining takes much less time than the initial
training.
 Limitations of MalGAN

• Mode Collapse
• Training Instability
• Evaluation Metrics
• Hyperparameter Sensitivity
• Limited Understanding of Latent Space
• Training Time and Resources
• Sensitive to Initialization
• Ethical Concerns
 SAGAN
Self-Attention Generative Adversarial Networks
 Why do we need SAGAN?

• SAGAN is important because it represents a major step forward in the field of

image generation.
• Its attention mechanism allows for more fine-grained control over the
generation process, resulting in images that are higher in quality and more
realistic than those produced by traditional GANs.
• Additionally, SAGAN can generate higher-resolution images than other GANs,
making it ideal for tasks such as super-resolution and texture synthesis.
 What does Self Attention mean?

• In the context of SAGAN (Self-Attention Generative Adversarial

Network), "self-attention" refers to a mechanism that allows the network
to focus on different parts of the input sequence when generating the
output.
• This attention mechanism helps the network capture long-range
dependencies and relationships between different elements in the input.
 SAGAN: Attention mechanism and Architecture
Input Representation:
• The input to the attention mechanism is a set of feature maps or vectors obtained from the previous layer in
the neural network.
Key, Query, and Value Computation:
• Each input feature vector is linearly transformed into three vectors: Key (K), Query (Q), and Value (V). These
transformations are learned during the training process.
Dot-Product Attention:
• For each position in the input, the attention score with respect to other positions is computed by taking the
dot product of the Query vector at that position with the Key vectors at all positions. This represents how
much focus should be given to other positions when considering the current position.
Scaled Attention Scores:
• The dot products are scaled by the square root of the dimension of the Key vectors. This scaling is
introduced to prevent the gradients from becoming too small during backpropagation.
Softmax and Weighted Sum:
• The scaled attention scores are passed through a softmax function to obtain normalized attention weights.
These weights determine how much each position contributes to the final attention.
Output:
• The output of the attention mechanism is a set of context-aware feature vectors, where each vector has
SAGAN Architecture
SAGAN: Training Algorithm
 APPLICATIONS
• Image Generation
• Data Augmentation
• Style Transfer
• Image-to-Image Translation
• Super-Resolution
• Anomaly Detection
• Drug Discovery
• Face Aging and Deaging
• Virtual Reality (VR) and Gaming
• Art and Creativity
 CURRENT CHALLENGES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

• Training Stability and Convergence

• Memory and Computational Requirements
• Interpretability and Control
• Evaluation Metrics and Benchmarking
• Ethical Considerations and Bias
• Real-Time Applications and Efficiency
• Hybrid Models and Multimodal Generation.
• Addressing Mode Collapse and Image Artifacts
• Dynamic Adaptation to Input Variability
• Handling Large-Scale and Unstructured Data
 CONCLUSION

• This research journey underscores the transformative impact of Generative Adversarial

Networks (GANs) in the realm of generative modeling. The evolution from traditional GANs to
specialized variants like MALGAN and SAGAN reflects the dynamic nature of this field.
• In MALGAN, the impact of retraining the black-box detector on the effectiveness of MalGAN is
that it leads to a dynamic adversarial process, making it difficult for machine learning-based
malware detection algorithms to work effectively. This highlights the challenges faced by
antivirus vendors in defending against adversarial attacks and the evolving nature of the
adversarial process.
• SAGAN, with its incorporation of self-attention mechanisms, has demonstrated advancements
in capturing long-range dependencies and improving image coherence. Its versatility is evident
in applications ranging from image synthesis to style transfer.
• As the field progresses, challenges such as training stability and ethical considerations persist,
prompting ongoing research efforts. Comparative studies between GAN variants, including
MALGAN and SAGAN, offer valuable insights into their unique contributions.
THANK YOU

Made by:
KARTIK BHASIN
(RESEARCH INTERN AT SAG, DRDO)
DTU (3rd Year)