Efficiently Adversarial Examples Generation for Visual-Language Models under Targeted Transfer Scenarios using Diffusion Models

Targeted transfer-based attacks involving adversarial examples pose a significant threat to large visual-language models (VLMs). However, the state-of-the-art (SOTA) transfer-based attacks incur high costs due to excessive iteration counts. Furthermore, the generated adversarial examples exhibit pronounced adversarial noise and demonstrate limited efficacy in evading defense methods such as DiffPure. To address these issues, inspired by score matching, we introduce AdvDiffVLM, which utilizes diffusion models to generate natural, unrestricted adversarial examples. Specifically, AdvDiffVLM employs Adaptive Ensemble Gradient Estimation to modify the score during the diffusion model's reverse generation process, ensuring the adversarial examples produced contain natural adversarial semantics and thus possess enhanced transferability. Simultaneously, to enhance the quality of adversarial examples further, we employ the GradCAM-guided Mask method to disperse adversarial semantics throughout the image, rather than concentrating them in a specific area. Experimental results demonstrate that our method achieves a speedup ranging from 10X to 30X compared to existing transfer-based attack methods, while maintaining superior quality of adversarial examples. Additionally, the generated adversarial examples possess strong transferability and exhibit increased robustness against adversarial defense methods. Notably, AdvDiffVLM can successfully attack commercial VLMs, including GPT-4V, in a black-box manner.