Adversarial Attacks on Leakage Detectors in Water Distribution Networks

Abstract: Many Machine Learning models are vulnerable to adversarial attacks: There exist methodologies that add a small (imperceptible) perturbation to an input such that the model comes up with a wrong prediction. Better understanding of such attacks is crucial in particular for models used in security-critical domains, such as monitoring of water distribution networks, in order to devise counter-measures enhancing model robustness and trustworthiness. We propose a taxonomy for adversarial attacks against machine learning based leakage detectors in water distribution networks. Following up on this, we focus on a particular type of attack: an adversary searching the least sensitive point, that is, the location in the water network where the largest possible undetected leak could occur. Based on a mathematical formalization of the least sensitive point problem, we use three different algorithmic approaches to find a solution. Results are evaluated on two benchmark water distribution networks.