Evidence in Hand: Passive Vibration Response-based Continuous User Authentication

Abstract

Continuous user authentication is of great importance to maintain security for a mobile system and protect user's privacy throughout a login session. In this paper, we propose HandPass, a continuous user authentication system that employs the vibration responses of concealed hand biometrics, which are passively activated by the natural user-device interactions on the touchscreen. Hand vibration responses are instantly triggered and embodied in the mechanical vibration of the force-bearing body (i.e., the mobile device and the holding hand). Therefore, a built-in accelerometer can effectively capture the intrinsic features of hand vibration responses. The hand vibration response is determined by the trigger force and the complex hand structure, which is unique to each user and is difficult (if not impossible) to counterfeit. HandPass is a passive hand vibration response-based continuous user authentication system hosted on smartphones, with advantages of non-intrusiveness, high efficiency, and user-friendliness. We prototyped HandPass on Android smartphones and comprehensively evaluated its performance by recruiting 43 volunteers. Experiment results show that HandPass can achieve 97.3 % overall authentication accuracy and only 1.8 % false acceptance rate in diverse scenarios.