FUEL : Fast , Ubiquitous , Easy-to-use , and Low-cost Authentication for Smartphones

As smartphones have become highly ubiquitous, it is often used as a primary gateway for many online services that require authentication. However, the traditional authentication approach using a user id and password can be inconvenient or impossible to use in certain cases. We propose Fast, Ubiquitous, Easy-to-use, and Low-cost (FUEL) scheme for authenticating users by leveraging existing ambient light sensors on smartphones. FUEL utilizes a light sensor available on a smartphone and a low-cost hardware token in order to authenticate a user of a smartphone to unlock it or to allow access to web and cloud services. Our experiments with a prototype system validate the feasibility of FUEL in authenticating a user on a smartphone in fast and secure way. It is aimed for emergent scenarios such as solders in a battle field, and for handicapped people with fine motor control problem who have difficulty in typing in user authentication information. It can also be used as one of multifactor authentication.