• DocumentCode
    1756666
  • Title

    Identification of Pressed Keys From Mechanical Vibrations

  • Author

    de Souza Faria, G. ; Hae Yong Kim

  • Author_Institution
    Dept. de Eng. de Sist. Eletronicos, Univ. de Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
  • Volume
    8
  • Issue
    7
  • fYear
    2013
  • fDate
    41456
  • Firstpage
    1221
  • Lastpage
    1229
  • Abstract
    This paper describes an attack that identifies the sequence of keystrokes analyzing mechanical vibrations generated by the act of pressing keys. We use accelerometers as vibration sensors. The apparatus necessary for this attack is inexpensive and can be unobtrusively embedded within the target equipment. We tested the proposed attack on an ATM keypad and a PIN-pad. We achieved the key recognition rates of 98.4% in ATM keypad, 76.7% in PIN-pad resting on a hard surface, and 82.1% in PIN-pad hold in hand.
  • Keywords
    interactive devices; security of data; vibrations; ATM keypad; PIN-pad; hard surface; key recognition rates; keystroke sequences; mechanical vibrations; pressed keys identification; Acceleration; Accelerometers; Keyboards; Pressing; Sensors; Vectors; Vibrations; ATM; Accelerometer; PIN-pad; information security; point of sale; side-channel attack; vibration;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Journal_Title
    Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Transactions on
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • ISSN
    1556-6013
  • Type

    jour

  • DOI
    10.1109/TIFS.2013.2266775
  • Filename
    6525326