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Article
When Human cognitive modeling meets PINs: User-independent inter-keystroke timing attacks
Computers and Security
  • Ximing LIU, Singapore Management University
  • Yingjiu LI, Singapore Management University
  • Robert H. DENG, Singapore Management University
  • Bing CHANG, Singapore Management University
  • Shujun LI, University of Kent at Canterbury - U.K.
Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
1-2019
Abstract

This paper proposes the first user-independent inter-keystroke timing attacks on PINs. Our attack method is based on an inter-keystroke timing dictionary built from a human cognitive model whose parameters can be determined by a small amount of training data on any users (not necessarily the target victims). Our attacks can thus be potentially launched on a large scale in real-world settings. We investigate inter-keystroke timing attacks in different online attack settings and evaluate their performance on PINs at different strength levels. Our experimental results show that the proposed attack performs significantly better than random guessing attacks. We further demonstrate that our attacks pose a serious threat to real-world applications and propose various ways to mitigate the threat.

Keywords
  • Authentication,
  • Human behavior,
  • Human cognitive model,
  • Keystroke dynamics,
  • PIN,
  • Timing attack
Identifier
10.1016/j.cose.2018.09.003
Publisher
Elsevier
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2018.09.003
Citation Information
Ximing LIU, Yingjiu LI, Robert H. DENG, Bing CHANG, et al.. "When Human cognitive modeling meets PINs: User-independent inter-keystroke timing attacks" Computers and Security Vol. 80 (2019) p. 90 - 107 ISSN: 0167-4048
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/robert-deng/301/