Research on continuous authentication using dynamic biometrics during information terminal operation

Abstract

Cyberattacks and cybercrime have increased along with digitisation, causing financial damage and putting lives at risk. It‘s difficult to stop criminals attempting attacks, but more can be done to thwart these efforts. Measures such as 2FA (two factor authentication) aren‘t foolproof. At the Department of Information and Electronic Systems Engineering, Daiichi Institute of Technology, Japan, researchers are conducting research on continuous authentication. They are developing a method by which the identity of a user can be continuously authenticated in order to improve security measures and reduce incidences of fraud, cyberattacks and cybercrime. Professor Takeshi Yamada leads the team, bringing his research background in physics, biometrics, information theory and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to overcoming the limitations of current user authentication systems. Even with continuous authentication, there are challenges to overcome such as interruptions caused by regular requests for ID and password authentication and what is known as ‘leakage’, whereby the leakage of IDs and passwords can enable unauthorised users to freely operate systems. These challenges led the team to the idea of continuous authentication by biometrics. The researchers decided to focus on continuous authentication using behavioural features, which includes handwriting, voiceprint and gait, and, for computer and smartphone security, authentication using features obtained from keyboard, mouse and touch operations.