Dynamic Touchscreen Keypad Randomization for Security
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Solution Overview
Problem
Touch-sensitive screens pose a security risk as users may inadvertently reveal fingerprint patterns or finger movement patterns when entering security data, such as passwords or PINs, which can be decoded by malicious individuals.
Innovation Solution
An electronic device with a touch-sensitive screen displays keys with random arrangements, varying display characteristics (background patterns, colors, fonts, and shapes) to secure data entry, where the keys are rearranged each time, making it difficult for unauthorized access to decode the security data from finger movements or fingerprints.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a traditional keypad is displayed on a touch screen, then data entry is enabled, but security is compromised due to visible fingerprint and finger movement patterns
Solution Approach 1:
The keypad layout is dynamically randomized on each display, changing the position of keys with each data entry session. This dynamic reconfiguration ensures that finger movement patterns and fingerprint impressions do not consistently map to the same physical locations, thereby preventing security breaches while maintaining ease of use through consistent logical key positioning
Solution Approach 2:
The spatial arrangement parameter of the keypad keys is changed randomly for each display session. The system transforms the static keypad layout into a dynamic one where key positions are randomly permuted, altering the physical-to-logical mapping while preserving the logical sequence and functionality of the keypad
2Ease of operation
If keys are arranged in a fixed pattern, then user recognition is easy, but security is weakened due to predictable finger movement patterns
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements dynamic randomization of key positions for each display session, transforming the static predictable layout into a dynamic unpredictable one. This maintains user recognition through consistent logical associations while destroying the predictability that security attackers exploit
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary randomization of the keypad layout before each data entry session. This preliminary action ensures that even if an attacker observes finger movements during one session, the layout will be different in subsequent sessions, preventing pattern-based decoding
Data Source
AI summary
A method and associated computing device. A first arrangement of numeric characters 0-9 is displayed, on a touch screen of the computing device, for an entry of a confidential sequence of numeric characters by a user during display of the first arrangement of the numeric characters 0-9 in ten respective regions of the touch screen. Each region includes (i) a unique numeric character and (ii) a graphical design that does not include the unique numeric character. The graphical design in each region is a different graphical design in each region. Each region has a closed exterior boundary and is totally filled with the graphical design consisting of a background pattern or no pattern. A graphical characteristic is instantiated differently for each numeric character displayed in the first arrangement. User touches are received on the displayed first arrangement of the confidential sequence of numeric characters to authenticate or authorize the user.