SSSL: Shoulder Surfing Safe Login

Classical PIN-entry methods are vulnerable to a broad class of observation attacks (shoulder surfing, key-logging). A number of alternative PIN-entry methods that are based on human cognitive skills have been proposed. These methods can be classified into two classes regarding information available to a passive adversary: (i) the adversary fully observes the entire input and output of a PIN-entry procedure, and (ii) the adversary can only partially observe the input and/or output. In this paper we propose a novel PIN-entry scheme- Shoulder Surfing Safe Login (SSSL). SSSL is a challenge response protocol that allows a user to login securely in the presence of the adversary who can observe (via key-loggers, cameras) user input. This is accomplished by restricting the access to SSSL challenge values. Compared to existing solutions, SSSL is both user-friendly (not mentally demanding) and cost efficient. Our usability study reveals that the average login time with SSSL is around 8 sec in a 5-digit PIN scenario. We also show the importance of considering side-channel timing attacks in the context of authentication schemes based on human cognitive skills

Guest Editorial: Smart Systems and Architectures

none5siŠolić, P. ; Perković, T. ; Marasović, I. ; López-De-Ipiña, D. ; Patrono, L.Šolić, P.; Perković, T.; Marasović, I.; López-De-Ipiña, D.; Patrono, L

enabling architectures and technologies for smart cities

The vision of smart cities has became a reality. Technological advances in low power devices and reliable communication and overall system architectures made it happening. However, there are plenty of improvements that still can be employed to further increase the efficiency of relevant systems or to provide new approaches that improve existing solutions. This special issue on Enabling Architectures and Technologies for Smart Cities of the JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE AND SYSTEMS aims to report on the recent advancements and developments in various aspects related to emerging hardware and software technologies enabling the IoT, such as RFID, WSN, system software architecture, integrated solutions, embedded systems, and so on. This issue recommended totally 10 papers for publication based on the standard reviewing process, where at least two constructive reviews and with guest editors comment have been received. Papers are split in two main groups focused mainly on system architectures that improve reliability in smart cities ([1- 5]), and hardware solutions ([6-10]) that are presented as either upgrades to exisiting solutions or new more efficient proposals. All of these were validated by analytics, simulations and/or testbed approaches