Abstract
The thermal camera can capture keyboard surface temperature change after a human's touch. This phenomenon may be used to steal users' passwords physically. In this paper, based on the study of thermal dynamics of keyboards, we design a password break system using an infrared thermal camera. First, we build a signal model to describe the dynamic process of temperature change on the keyboard using Newton's law of cooling. Next, we develop a maximum likelihood parameter estimation algorithm to estimate the keystroke time instants. Then, by maximizing the probability of key order arrangement, a novel password breaking algorithm is developed. Our algorithm is tested using simulated data as well as real-world data. Experiment results show that our algorithm is effective for physical password breaking using thermal characteristics. Based on our results, we discuss strategies for password protection at the end.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 8453013 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1142-1154 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2019 |
Keywords
- Information protection
- curve fitting
- password
- sequence analysis
- thermal image