Keystroke dynamics as a biometric for authentication

Abstract

More than ever before the Internet is changing computing as we know it. Global access to information and resources is becoming an integral part of nearly every aspect of our lives. Unfortunately, with this global network access comes increased chances of malicious attack and intrusion. In an effort to confront the new threats unveiled by the networking revolution of the past few years reliable, rapid, and unintrusive means for automatically recognizing the identity of individuals are now being sought. In this paper we examine an emerging non-static biometric technique that aims to identify users based on analyzing habitual rhythm patterns in the way they type.

On Capturing Older Adults’ Smartphone Keyboard Interaction as a Means for Behavioral Change Under Emotional Stimuli Within i-PROGNOSIS Framework

“…In fact, since the smartphone is embedded with the accelerometer and gyroscope sensor, more information can be used on the pattern analysis [11], [20], [21]. Some of the main keyboard dynamics are based on latencies of the keystrokes (e.g., time between keystrokes or the length of time that each keystroke is pressed), revealing that the typing patterns of the same individuals vary over time and are affected by other factors, such as stress or gradual changes in cognitive or physical function [22]; thus, keyboard dynamics can provide relevant behavioral information about the affective/cognitive state of the user. Khanna and Sasikumar [23], used the keyboard dynamics to differentiate between neutral/positive and negative emotions.…”

Biometric Authentication Through a Virtual Keyboard for Smartphones

“…This step is used to compare the data from the current authentication process with the storage. Like other biometric modalities, classifiers have been proposed for this comparison including distance measures [6], neural networks ( [18] [19]) and probabilistic classifier (Bayesian classifier) [20].…”

Keystroke Dynamics Overview

“…By this way, the computer is able to lock the session if it detects that the user is different than the one which has previously been authenticated on this computer. Such monitoring can also be used to analyse the behavior of the user (instead its identity), and, detect abnormal activities while accessing to highly restricted documents or executing tasks in an environment where the user must be alert at all the times (Monrose & Rubin, 2000). Continuous authentication is interesting, but has a lot of privacy concerns, because the system monitors all the events.…”

“…Monrose & Rubin (2000) suggest the use of keystroke dynamics to verify the state of the user and alert a third party if its behavior is abnormal. But, this was just a suggestion, and not a verification.…”