Machine learning (ML) algorithms deployed in real-world environments are often faced with the challenge of adapting models to concept drift, where the task data distributions are shifting over time. The problem becomes even more difficult when model performance must be maintained under adherence to strict resource constraints. Existing solutions often depend on drift-detection methods that produce high computational overhead for resource-constrained environments, and fail to provide strict guarantees on resource usage or theoretical performance assurances. To address these shortcomings, we propose RCCDA: a dynamic model update policy that optimizes ML training dynamics while ensuring compliance to predefined resource constraints, utilizing only past loss information and a tunable drift threshold. In developing our policy, we analytically characterize the evolution of model loss under concept drift with arbitrary training update decisions. Integrating these results into a Lyapunov drift-plus-penalty framework produces a lightweight greedy-optimal policy that provably limits update frequency and cost. Experimental results on four domain generalization datasets demonstrate that our policy outperforms baseline methods in inference accuracy while adhering to strict resource constraints under several schedules of concept drift, making our solution uniquely suited for real-time ML deployments.

As federated learning (FL) becomes more widespread, there is growing interest in its decentralized variants. Decentralized FL leverages the benefits of fast and energy-efficient device-to-device communications to obviate the need for a central server. However, this opens the door to new security vulnerabilities as well. While FL security has been a popular research topic, the role of adversarial node placement in decentralized FL remains largely unexplored. This article addresses this gap by evaluating the impact of various coordinated adversarial node placement strategies on decentralized FL’s model training performance. We adapt two threads of placement strategies to this context: 1) maximum span-based algorithms and 2) network centrality-based approaches. Building on them, we propose a novel attack strategy, MaxSpAN-FL, which is a hybrid between these paradigms that adjusts node placement probabilistically based on network topology characteristics. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our attack consistently induces the largest degradation in decentralized FL models compared with baseline schemes across various network configurations and numbers of coordinating adversaries. We also provide theoretical support for why eigenvector centrality-based attacks are suboptimal in decentralized FL. Overall, our findings provide valuable insights into the vulnerabilities of decentralized FL systems, setting the stage for future research aimed at developing more secure and robust decentralized FL frameworks.

As Federated Learning (FL) grows in popularity, new decentralized frameworks are becoming widespread. These frameworks leverage the benefits of decentralized environments to enable fast and energy-efficient inter-device communication. However, this growing popularity also intensifies the need for robust security measures. While existing research has explored various aspects of FL security, the role of adversarial node placement in decentralized networks remains largely unexplored. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing the performance of decentralized FL for various adversarial placement strategies when adversaries can jointly coordinate their placement within a network. We establish two baseline strategies for placing adversarial node: random placement and network centrality-based placement. Building on this foundation, we propose a novel attack algorithm that prioritizes adversarial spread over adversarial centrality by maximizing the average network distance between adversaries. We show that the new attack algorithm significantly impacts key performance metrics such as testing accuracy, outperforming the baseline frameworks by between 9% and 66.5% for the considered setups. Our findings provide valuable insights into the vulnerabilities of decentralized FL systems, setting the stage for future research aimed at developing more secure and robust decentralized FL frameworks.