SPIES Lab, Computer Science and Engineering

VibWrite

Towards Finger-input Authentication on Ubiquitous Surfaces via Physical Vibration

The goal of this work is to enable user authentication via finger inputs on ubiquitous surfaces leveraging low-cost physical vibration. We propose VibWrite that extends finger-input authentication beyond touch screens to any solid surface for smart access systems (e.g., access to apartments, vehicles or smart appliances). It integrates passcode, behavioral and physiological characteristics, and surface dependency together to provide a low-cost, tangible and enhanced security solution. VibWrite builds upon a touch sensing technique with vibration signals that can operate on surfaces constructed from a broad range of materials. It is significantly different from traditional password-based approaches, which only authenticate the password itself rather than the legitimate user, and the behavioral biometrics-based solutions, which usually involve specific or expensive hardware (e.g., touch screen or fingerprint reader), incurring privacy concerns and suffering from smudge attacks. VibWrite is based on new algorithms to discriminate finegrained finger inputs and supports three independent passcode secrets including PIN number, lock pattern, and simple gestures by extracting unique features in the frequency domain to capture both behavioral and physiological characteristics such as contacting area, touching force, and etc. VibWrite is implemented using a single pair of low-cost vibration motor and receiver that can be easily attached to any surface (e.g., a door panel, a desk or an appliance). Our extensive experiments demonstrate that VibWrite can authenticate users with high accuracy (e.g., over 95% within two trials), low false positive rate (e.g., less 3%) and is robust to various types of attacks.

Illustration of a finger touching on a solid surface under physical vibration, and three independent types of secrets for pervasive user authentication.

Illustration of a finger touching on a solid surface under physical vibration, and three independent types of secrets for pervasive user authentication.

People

Faculty

External Collaborators:

  • Jian Liu (PhD Candidate; Rutgers University)
  • Chen Wang (PhD Student;Rutgers University)
  • Yingying Chen (Professor; Rutgers University)

Publication

  • Enabling Finger-touch-based Mobile User Authentication via Physical Vibrations on
    IoT Devices
    Xin Yang, Song Yang, Jian Liu, Chen Wang, Yingying Chen and Nitesh Saxena
    In IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC), 2020
  • VibWrite: Towards Finger-input Authentication on Ubiquitous Surfaces via Physical Vibration.
    Jian Liu, Chen Wang, Yingying Chen and Nitesh Saxena
    In ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), October/Novermber 2017.
    [pdf]
  • Good Vibrations: Accessing ‘Smart’ Systems by Touching Any Solid Surface
    Jian Liu, Chen Wang, Yingying Chen, and Nitesh Saxena,
    Biometric Technology Today, Issue 4, Pages 7-10, 2018.
    [pdf]

Media Coverage