HapticLock: Eyes-Free Authentication for Mobile Devices

Dhandapani, G., Ferguson, J. and Freeman, E. (2021) HapticLock: Eyes-Free Authentication for Mobile Devices. In: 23rd ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI ’21), Montréal, QC, Canada, 18-22 Oct 2021, pp. 195-202. ISBN 978145038481-0 (doi: 10.1145/3462244.3481001)

Abstract

Smartphones provide access to increasing amounts of personal and sensitive information, yet are often only secured using methods that are prone to observational attacks. We present HapticLock, a novel authentication method for mobile devices that uses non-visual interaction modalities for discreet PIN entry that is difficult to attack by shoulder surfing. A usability experiment (N=20) finds effective PIN entry in secure conditions: e.g., in 23.5s with 98.3% success rate for a four-digit PIN entered from a random start digit. A shoulder surfing experiment (N=15) finds that HapticLock is highly resistant to observational attacks. Even when interaction is highly visible, attackers need to guess the first digit when PIN entry begins with a random number, yielding a very low success rate for shoulder surfing. Furthermore, a device can be hidden from view during authentication. Our use of haptic interaction modalities gives privacy-conscious mobile device users a usable and secure authentication alternative for sensitive situations.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Freeman, Dr Euan and Ferguson, Dr Jamie
• Authors: Dhandapani, G., Ferguson, J., and Freeman, E.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• ISBN: 978145038481-0
• Published Online: 18 October 2021
• Copyright Holders: © 2021 Copyright held by the owner/author(s)
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy

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