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The effect of adaptive mechanism on behavioural biometric based mobile phone authentication

Weizhi Meng (Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
Duncan S. Wong (Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
Lam-For Kwok (Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

Information Management & Computer Security

ISSN: 0968-5227

Article publication date: 3 June 2014

568

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to design a compact scheme of behavioural biometric-based user authentication, develop an adaptive mechanism that selects an appropriate classifier in an adaptive way and conduct a study to explore the effect of this mechanism.

Design/methodology/approach

As a study, the proposed adaptive mechanism was implemented using a cost-based metric, which enables mobile phones to adopt a less costly classifier in an adaptive way to build the user normal-behaviour model and detect behavioural anomalies.

Findings

The user study with 50 participants indicates that our proposed mechanism can positively affect the authentication performance by maintaining the authentication accuracy at a relatively high and stable level.

Research limitations/implications

The authentication accuracy can be further improved by incorporating other appropriate classifiers (e.g. neural networks) and considering other touch-gesture-related features (e.g. the speed of a touch).

Practical implications

This work explores the effect of adaptive mechanism on behavioural biometric-based user authentication. The results should be of interest for software developers and security specialists in deciding whether to implement such a mechanism for enhancing authentication performance on mobile phones.

Originality/value

The user study with 50 participants indicates that this mechanism can positively affect the authentication performance by maintaining the authentication accuracy at a relatively high and stable level. To the best of our knowledge, our work is an early work discussing the implementation of an adaptive mechanism on a mobile phone.

Keywords

Citation

Meng, W., S. Wong, D. and Kwok, L.-F. (2014), "The effect of adaptive mechanism on behavioural biometric based mobile phone authentication", Information Management & Computer Security, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 155-166. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMCS-09-2013-0062

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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