Meaning of smudge attack | Babel Free

Definitions

A method used to crack the password of a touchscreen device by analysing the oily smears left on the device's screen by the user's fingers.

Examples

“Touch⟳ screens are touched, so oily residues, or smudges, remain⟳ on the screen as a side effect. Latent smudges may be usable to infer recently and frequently touched areas of the screen – a form⟳ of information leakage. This paper explores the feasibility of smudge attacks, where an attacker, by inspection of smudges, attempts to extract sensitive information about recent user input.”

“The OTP [one-time password] mechanism that financial institutions adopted utilizes a one-time password displayed on OTP device, so it is vulnerable to shoulder surfing attacks (SSA) and smudge attacks.”

“However, the fixed keypad lock⟳ can be easily unlocked by brute force⟳ attacks and the pattern lock⟳ is vulnerable to smudge attacks.”

“[A]rguably, picture passwords are a little more secure on desktops than on touchscreen devices, because you don't have⟳ to worry⟳ about anyone guessing your gesture password by examining your monitor⟳ for greasy fingerprints. That last⟳ scenario may sound⟳ like⟳ something out of a trashy espionage thriller, but the threat of a "smudge attack" is real enough to warrant serious study⟳. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania coined the term in 2010 when they were able to successfully deduce gesture passwords used to unlock⟳ Android phones from smudge marks left on the screen.”

CEFR level