Advanced Techniques for Preventing Thermal Imaging Attacks

Alotaibi, Norah; Islam, Sirajul; Marky, Karola; Khamis, Mohamed

doi:10.1145/3490100.3516472

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…automatically detect keyboards and key-presses in a thermal image [7,8]. This demonstration will display our current research, utilising the same automatic detection to create thermal cameras systems which obfuscate authentication interfaces, preventing thermal attacks as they happen and whether or not they were detected by the potential victim.…”

Section: Work By Alotaibi Et Al Has Demonstrated the Ability For A De...mentioning

confidence: 98%

Conducting and Mitigating Portable Thermal Imaging Attacks on User Authentication using AI-driven Methods

Macdonald

Alotaibi

Islam

et al. 2023

Augmented Humans Conference

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Thermal cameras have become portable enough to integrate into wearables, such as glasses, and can be used maliciously to infer passwords observing heat traces left on keyboards, keypads and screens. While prior work showed how AI-driven approaches can be used to further enhance the effectiveness of these attacks, we use similar approaches to detect vulnerable interfaces and obfuscate heat traces to defend against thermal attacks. At our Augmented Humans 2023 demo, attendees will have the chance to use a thermal camera to observe thermal traces on a keyboard, and observe how machine learning can both automatically identify keys pressed based and identify, then obfuscate, thermal images of a keyboard to prevent thermal attacks. This demo will provoke thought and discussion about the security risks presented by discrete, wearable thermal cameras and how these risks can be mitigated by both designers and users. CCS Concepts: • Security and privacy → Usability in security and privacy; Privacy protections; • Computing methodologies → Computer vision; Machine learning.

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Section: Work By Alotaibi Et Al Has Demonstrated the Ability For A De...mentioning

confidence: 98%

Conducting and Mitigating Portable Thermal Imaging Attacks on User Authentication using AI-driven Methods

Macdonald

Alotaibi

Islam

et al. 2023

Augmented Humans Conference

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“…7.6 Hiding heat traces in the thermal camera's view An alternative approach to mitigate thermal imaging attacks is by detecting interfaces in the feed of the thermal camera, and obfuscating it to prevent users from performing thermal attacks. There has been recent preliminary work in this direction [6]. However, more research is needed to offer protection against thermal attacks without significantly impacting the utility of the thermal camera.…”

Section: Thermal Conductivity Of Surfacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

ThermoSecure: Investigating the Effectiveness of AI-Driven Thermal Attacks on Commonly Used Computer Keyboards

Alotaibi

Williamson

Khamis

2023

ACM Trans. Priv. Secur.

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Thermal cameras can reveal heat traces on user interfaces, such as keyboards. This can be exploited maliciously to infer sensitive input, such as passwords. While previous work considered thermal attacks that rely on visual inspection of simple image processing techniques, we show that attackers can perform more effective AI-driven attacks. We demonstrate this by presenting the development of ThermoSecure, and its evaluation in two user studies (N=21, N=16) which reveal novel insights about thermal attacks. We detail the implementation of ThermoSecure and make a dataset of 1,500 thermal images of keyboards with heat traces resulting from input publicly available. Our first study shows that ThermoSecure successfully attacks 6-symbol, 8-symbol, 12-symbol, and 16-symbol passwords with an average accuracy of 92%, 80%, 71%, and 55% respectively, and even higher accuracy when thermal images are taken within 30 seconds. We found that typing behavior significantly impacts vulnerability to thermal attacks, where hunt-and-peck typists are more vulnerable than fast typists (92% vs 83% thermal attack success if performed within 30 seconds). The second study showed that the keycaps material has a statistically significant effect on the effectiveness of thermal attacks: ABS keycaps retain the thermal trace of users presses for a longer period of time, making them more vulnerable to thermal attacks, with a 52% average attack accuracy compared to 14% for keyboards with PBT keycaps. Finally, we discuss how systems can leverage our results to protect from thermal attacks, and present 7 mitigation approaches that are based on our results and previous work.

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Development of a matrix-style pressure sensing pin-pad module with tactile feedback

Chang,

Chang

2024

Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

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Advanced Techniques for Preventing Thermal Imaging Attacks

Abstract: There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it.

Cited by 3 publications

References 12 publications

Conducting and Mitigating Portable Thermal Imaging Attacks on User Authentication using AI-driven Methods

Conducting and Mitigating Portable Thermal Imaging Attacks on User Authentication using AI-driven Methods

ThermoSecure: Investigating the Effectiveness of AI-Driven Thermal Attacks on Commonly Used Computer Keyboards

Development of a matrix-style pressure sensing pin-pad module with tactile feedback

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