SECAI Core · phase 11 of 15 · noun
Output Integrity Attack
A security attack where the attacker changes or interferes with the final output of a machine learning model
The Explain card
- Plain English
- An output integrity attack changes or interferes with the final output of a machine learning model after it has been produced, so consumers receive a result the model never actually gave.
- Example
- Malware on an inference server rewrites fraud-detection verdicts in transit, flipping "suspicious" to "approved" for selected transactions, while the model itself remains untouched.
- Why it matters
- A perfect model is useless if the pipe after it is tampered with. Defenders sign or authenticate model outputs, protect the inference path, and monitor for verdicts that disagree with expected patterns.
- Hook
- The oracle spoke the truth; the messenger rewrote it.
Word knowledge
How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.
In a sentence
The audit logged an Output Integrity Attack when malware replaced the classifier's approved label between the inference server and the radiology workstation.
Why these words
- output English out plus put identifies the result channel under discussion
- integrity Latin integritas, wholeness or soundness names the quality expected of that result
- attack Italian attaccare through French attaquer classifies the event as a hostile action
Where it came from
- Origin
- an English technical compound combining output, integrity, and attack
- Entered the language
- 21st century
- What changed
- Older words for a produced result, soundness, and hostile action were combined into a specialized cybersecurity label.
How it is spelled
- Pattern
- output is written as a closed compound
- Pattern
- integrity ends in the abstract-noun suffix -ity
- Pattern
- attack uses ck after the short a sound
Spelled like
- input
- throughput
- security
- purity
- stack
- track
Broken into chunks
-
out-put
- input
- throughput
-
integr-ity
- integer
- integral
-
attack
- counterattack
- cyberattack
What it sits beside
Same subject
- adversarial example
- model tampering
- prompt injection
- data poisoning
Same shape
- prompt injection attack
- model extraction attack
- data poisoning attack
machine learning security attacks
- model extraction attack
- data poisoning attack
- membership inference attack
security properties
- integrity
- confidentiality
- availability
Where it sits in the deck
Phase 11: Threat Landscape: Attack Vectors and Adversarial Techniques
With defenses named, learn what they must defend against — the full catalog of attack techniques targeting AI systems, their inputs, outputs, training pipelines, and supply chains.
