Understanding Shoulder Surfing in the Wild: Stories from Users and Observers

Eiband, M., Khamis, M. , von Zezschwitz, E., Hussmann, H. and Alt, F. (2017) Understanding Shoulder Surfing in the Wild: Stories from Users and Observers. In: CHI '17: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Denver, CO, USA, 6-11 May 2017, pp. 4254-4265. ISBN 9781450346559 (doi: 10.1145/3025453.3025636)

Abstract

Research has brought forth a variety of authentication systems to mitigate observation attacks. However, there is little work about shoulder surfing situations in the real world. We present the results of a user survey (N=174) in which we investigate actual stories about shoulder surfing on mobile devices from both users and observers. Our analysis indicates that shoulder surfing mainly occurs in an opportunistic, non-malicious way. It usually does not have serious consequences, but evokes negative feelings for both parties, resulting in a variety of coping strategies. Observed data was personal in most cases and ranged from information about interests and hobbies to login data and intimate details about third persons and relationships. Thus, our work contributes evidence for shoulder surfing in the real world and informs implications for the design of privacy protection mechanisms.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Keywords: Mobile devices, privacy, shoulder surfing.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Khamis, Dr Mohamed
• Authors: Eiband, M., Khamis, M., von Zezschwitz, E., Hussmann, H., and Alt, F.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Publisher: ACM
• ISBN: 9781450346559
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2017 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 4254-4265
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy