Researchers at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon have been working on software that doesn’t analyze what passwords are typed, but rather how words are typed. Researchers Ravel Jabbour, Wes Mastri and Ali El-Hajj have found that examining the speed and rhythm of the user’s keystrokes “significantly boosts reliable authentication.” In a paper titled “Optimizing password security through key-pattern analysis,” published last year, the researchers describe a ‘key-pattern analysis’ to evaluate how long users depressed each key in addition to the time it took them to click each one.
The researchers aren’t the first ones to stumble upon keystroke biometrics as a promising technology, which has the advantage of being both free (you carry your typing style in your head) and device independent.
(Image via adikos‘s Flickr photostream)
