Suchan, A. (2018). Stop to unlock - improving the security of unlock patterns on mobile devices [Diploma Thesis, Technische Universität Wien]. reposiTUm. https://doi.org/10.34726/hss.2018.49443
E188 - Institut für Softwaretechnik und Interaktive Systeme
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Date (published):
2018
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Number of Pages:
64
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Keywords:
unlock pattern; mobile devices; security evaluation; usability metrics; entropy; user study; authentication
en
Abstract:
In this master thesis, we propose a security improvement for traditional unlock patterns as found in modern off-the-shelf smartphones. With our StopUnlock Patterns we propose to add a stop component which lets users define nodes where they deliberately stop for a limited amount of time before swiping to the next node of their unlock pattern. We argue that this stop component lets users select higher entropy patterns with only a minimal impact on usability metrics (such as authentication time and error rate) in comparison to simply increasing the length of the pattern. To evaluate StopUnlock Patterns, we conducted a lab study (n=40), a field study (n=14) and a security evaluation. Our findings suggest that StopUnlock Patterns (i) are easy to use, (ii) are memorable, and (iii) improve security.