Keystroke dynamics for user verification

Abstract

With the evolution of internet, the dependency of humans on them has increased. This has led to an increase in attacks, forgery, impersonation and so on, which require that a user and his privacy be maintained. Thus the need to protect a user has increased intensifying protection, authentication and verification methods of a user. There are many methods of authenticating a user, which include traditional methods of authentication such as passwords, personal identification numbers and so on, However, these methods have their drawbacks and hence biometrics have replaced these methods in some cases and in some cases biometrics has turned out be an additional layer of security, therefore providing better security. In this paper we propose one of the behavioral methods of biometric authentication called keystroke dynamics which uses a user’s typing rhythm to verify a user. One of the most common examples of this method is the verification of user using CAPTCHA, where the user is asked to type the letters to be verified as a genuine user and thus the user’s typing rhythm is captured based on which a match is generated and the user is verified. This method is most commonly used in applications such as online banking, email verifications and other such areas. This method acts as an additional layer of security to an existing system and helps protect the sensitive information of the user.