How hackers can 'poison' open-source code

August 13, 2021

by Adam Conner-Simons, Cornell University

Cornell Tech researchers have discovered a new type of online attack that can manipulate natural-language modeling systems and evade any known defense—with possible consequences ranging from modifying movie reviews to manipulating investment banks' machine-learning models to ignore negative news coverage that would affect a specific company's stock.

In a new paper, researchers found the implications of these types of hacks—which they call "code poisoning"—to be wide-reaching for everything from algorithmic trading to fake news and propaganda.

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