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How to Red Team a HuggingFace Model: Complete Security Testing Guide

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How to Red Team a HuggingFace Model

Want to break a HuggingFace model? This guide shows you how to use Promptfoo to systematically probe for vulnerabilities through adversarial testing (red teaming).

You'll learn how to craft prompts that bypass safety filters and manipulate model outputs for a wide range of potential harms.

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Table of Contents

  1. Prerequisites
  2. Setting Up the Environment
  3. Configuring the HuggingFace Provider
  4. Defining the Red Teaming Configuration
  5. Running the Red Team Evaluation
  6. Analyzing the Results

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

  • Node.js 20+: Download Node.js
  • Promptfoo: No prior installation is necessary; we'll use npx to run Promptfoo commands.
  • HuggingFace API Token: Sign up for a HuggingFace account and obtain an API token from your account settings.

Set your HuggingFace API token as an environment variable:

bash
export HF_API_TOKEN=your_huggingface_api_token

Setting Up the Environment

Initialize a New Project

Use the promptfoo command-line tool to initialize a new red teaming project:

bash
npx promptfoo@latest redteam init my-huggingface-redteam --no-gui
cd my-huggingface-redteam

This command creates a new directory with a promptfooconfig.yaml file, which we'll use to configure our red teaming setup.

Configuring the HuggingFace Provider

In your promptfooconfig.yaml file, add a HuggingFace provider to specify the model you want to test. For this example, we'll use the Mistral 7B model for text generation.

yaml
targets:
  - id: huggingface:text-generation:mistralai/Mistral-7B-v0.1
    label: Mistral-7B
    config:
      temperature: 0.7
      max_new_tokens: 150
      top_p: 0.9

Explanation of Configuration Parameters

  • id: Specifies the HuggingFace model and task type (huggingface:text-generation:gpt2).
  • label: A friendly name for your provider, used in reports.
  • config: Additional parameters for the HuggingFace API.
    • apiKey: Your HuggingFace API token.
    • temperature: Controls the randomness in text generation.
    • max_new_tokens: The maximum number of tokens to generate.
    • top_p: Controls diversity via nucleus sampling.

Defining the Red Teaming Configuration

In the same promptfooconfig.yaml file, define the red teaming parameters under the redteam section.

Be sure to customize the purpose, plugins, and strategies to match the types of vulnerabilities you care about.

yaml
redteam:
  numTests: 5
  purpose: 'You are a customer service agent for...'
  plugins:
    - harmful
  strategies:
    - jailbreak
    - jailbreak:tree
    - prompt-injection

Key Components

  • numTests: Sets the number of test cases per plugin.
  • purpose: Describes the intended behavior of the model, guiding the generation of adversarial inputs.
  • plugins: Specifies the types of vulnerabilities to test. See full list.
  • strategies: Techniques used to deliver adversarial inputs. See full list.

Running the Red Team Evaluation

Generate Adversarial Test Cases

First, generate the adversarial inputs based on the defined plugins and strategies:

bash
npx promptfoo@latest redteam generate

This command creates a redteam.yaml file containing the generated test cases.

Execute the Tests

Run the tests against your HuggingFace model:

bash
npx promptfoo@latest redteam run

This command evaluates the model's responses to the adversarial inputs and logs the results.

Analyzing the Results

Generate a report to review the findings:

bash
npx promptfoo@latest redteam report

Understanding the Report

The report provides insights into:

  1. Vulnerability Categories: Types of vulnerabilities discovered.
  2. Severity Levels: Classifies vulnerabilities based on their potential impact.
  3. Test Cases: Specific inputs that led to vulnerabilities.
  4. Suggested Mitigations: Recommendations to address the identified issues.

Re-evaluate After Changes

After implementing mitigations, rerun the red team evaluation to ensure vulnerabilities have been addressed:

bash
npx promptfoo@latest redteam run
npx promptfoo@latest redteam report

Additional Resources