Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, October 12 (Xinhua)-- Cyber security experts in Scotland have developed a system that uses thermal imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) to crack passwords, Canadian television company CTV News reported.

The system, known as ThermoSecure, works by analyzing the traces of heat left by a person's fingertips when entering a password on a computer keyboard or mobile device. Because the brighter areas on the thermal sensing image show the most recently touched areas, you can guess the order of letters, numbers, and symbols used.

To achieve this, Dr. Mohamed Khamis, an associate professor at the University of Glasgow, and his team used machine learning and 1500 thermal images after keystrokes to train artificial intelligence and study possible password combinations.

Research shows that ThermoSecure cracked 67% of 16-character passwords in 20 seconds, and the success rate for 12 -, 8-and 6-character passwords increased to 82%, 93% and 100%, respectively, indicating that longer passwords are more secure.

In addition, the user's typing style is also important because "one-finger Zen typing" users who stay on the keyboard for longer periods of time have a longer duration of hot signatures (looking at the way the keyboard letters are typed one by one) compared to "touch typing", which is faster. In the study's tests, ThermoSecure guessed that the former had a success rate of 80 per cent, while the latter had a success rate of 92 per cent.

The study also found that ThermoSecure cracked the ABS plastic keyboard with a success rate of 52%. However, the success rate of cracking PBT plastic keyboard is only 14%.

CTOnews.com learned that the team behind ThermoSecure warned that thermal imaging password attacks could soon become more common as thermal imaging cameras become cheaper and machine learning becomes easier.

To reduce the risk of these attacks, the team recommends other authentication methods, such as fingerprint or facial recognition. Dr Khamis added: "longer passwords are more difficult for ThermoSecure to guess accurately, so we recommend using longer passwords as much as possible."

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