Virtual fingerprint - image-based authentication increases privacy for users of mouse-replacement interfaces

Current secondary user authentication methods are imperfect. They either rely heavily on a user’s ability to remember key preferences and phrases or they involve providing authentication on multiple devices. However, malicious attacks that compromise a user’s device or discover personal information about the user are becoming more sophisticated and increasing in number. Users who rely on mouse-replacement interfaces face additional privacy concerns when monitored or assisted by caregivers. Our authentication method proposes a way of quantifying a user’s personality traits by observing his selection of images. This method would not be as vulnerable to malicious attacks as current methods are because the method is based on psychological observations that can not be replicated by anyone other than the correct user. As a preliminary evaluation, we created a survey consisting of slides of images and asked participants to click through them. The results indicated our proposed authentication method has clear potential to address these issues