Towards Baselines for Shoulder Surfing on Mobile Authentication

Given the nature of mobile devices and unlock procedures, unlock authentication is a prime target for credential leaking via shoulder surfing, a form of an observation attack. While the research community has investigated solutions to minimize or prevent the threat of shoulder surfing, our understanding of how the attack performs on current systems is less well studied. In this paper, we describe a large online experiment (n=1173) that works towards establishing a baseline of shoulder surfing vulnerability for current unlock authentication systems. Using controlled video recordings of a victim entering in a set of 4- and 6-length PINs and Android unlock patterns on different phones from different angles, we asked participants to act as attackers, trying to determine the authentication input based on the observation. We find that 6-digit PINs are the most elusive attacking surface where a single observation leads to just 10.8% successful attacks, improving to 26.5\% with multiple observations. As a comparison, 6-length Android patterns, with one observation, suffered 64.2% attack rate and 79.9% with multiple observations. Removing feedback lines for patterns improves security from 35.3\% and 52.1\% for single and multiple observations, respectively. This evidence, as well as other results related to hand position, phone size, and observation angle, suggests the best and worst case scenarios related to shoulder surfing vulnerability which can both help inform users to improve their security choices, as well as establish baselines for researchers.Comment: Will appear in Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC

Public Awareness of Mobile Authentication Service in Identifying Counterfeit Drugs in Rivers State Nigeria

In 2010, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), a government agency in Nigeria, launched a technological scheme called Mobile Authentication Service to equip drug users in Nigeria with the knowledge of how to identify genuine drugs they have bought. This study examined public awareness and use of the Mobile Authentication Service in identifying counterfeit drugs in Rivers State Nigeria. The study was anchored on diffusion of innovation theory. It adopted the survey research method. A sample size of 384 was drawn from the population. The study applied multi-stage sampling, simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques. Questionnaire and interview served as instruments for data collection. Data generated were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative methods. The percentage and Likert scale mean value methods were adopted using the mean score benchmark of 2.5. Findings revealed among others that inspite of the Rivers State residents’ awareness of the Mobile Authentication Service, majority of them do not know how the scheme works and majority do not also apply it before taking their drugs. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended that the agency should redouble its efforts in creating public awareness on how the Mobile Authentication. Service works using the Mass Media. The agency should also initiate programme(s) in the media specially designed to inform and educate Rivers State residents on the danger of not applying the MAS scheme before taking their drugs

Development of a typing behaviour recognition mechanism on Android

This paper proposes a biometric authentication system which use password based and behavioural traits (typing behaviours) authentication technology to establish user’s identity on a mobile phone. The proposed system can work on the latest smart phone platform. It uses mobile devices to capture user’s keystroke data and transmit it to web server. The authentication engine will establish if a user is genuine or fraudulent. In addition, a multiplier of the standard deviation “α” has been defined which aims to achieve the balance between security and usability. Experimental results indicate that the developed authentication system is highly reliable and very secure with an equal error rate is below 7.5%

Frictionless Authentication Systems: Emerging Trends, Research Challenges and Opportunities

Authentication and authorization are critical security layers to protect a wide range of online systems, services and content. However, the increased prevalence of wearable and mobile devices, the expectations of a frictionless experience and the diverse user environments will challenge the way users are authenticated. Consumers demand secure and privacy-aware access from any device, whenever and wherever they are, without any obstacles. This paper reviews emerging trends and challenges with frictionless authentication systems and identifies opportunities for further research related to the enrollment of users, the usability of authentication schemes, as well as security and privacy trade-offs of mobile and wearable continuous authentication systems.Comment: published at the 11th International Conference on Emerging Security Information, Systems and Technologies (SECURWARE 2017

Towards Seamless and Secure Mobile Authentication

abstract: With the rise of mobile technology, the personal lives and sensitive information of everyday citizens are carried about without a thought to the risks involved. Despite this high possibility of harm, many fail to use simple security to protect themselves because they feel the benefits of securing their devices do not outweigh the cost to usability. The main issue is that beyond initial authentication, sessions are maintained using optional timeout mechanisms where a session will end if a user is inactive for a period of time. This interruption-based form of continuous authentication requires constant user intervention leading to frustration, which discourages its use. No solution currently exists that provides an implementation beyond the insecure and low usability of simple timeout and re-authentication. This work identifies the flaws of current mobile authentication techniques and provides a new solution that is not limiting to the user, has a system for secure, active continuous authentication, and increases the usability and security over current methods.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Computer Science 201