Android Pattern Unlock Authentication - effectiveness of local and global dynamic features

This study conducts a holistic analysis of the performances of biometric features incorporated into Pattern Unlock authentication. The objective is to enhance the strength of the authentication by adding an implicit layer. Earlier studies have incorporated either global or local dynamic features for verification; however, as found in this paper, different features have variable discriminating power, especially at different extraction levels. The discriminating potential of global, local and their combination are evaluated. Results showed that locally extracted features have higher discriminating power than global features and combining both features gives the best verification performance. Further, a novel feature was proposed and evaluated, which was found to have a varied impact (both positive and negative) on the system performance. From our findings, it is essential to evaluate features (independently and collectively), extracted at different levels (global and local) and different combination for some might impede on the verification performance of the system.