Using Wi-Fi Enabled Internet of Things Devices for Context-Aware Authentication

The increasing spread and adoption of the Internet of Things allows for novel methods to gather information about a user’s context, which can be used for enhanced authentication. In this article, we focus on context-aware authentication using information about Wi-Fi networks from a user’s wearables or nearables. We propose an additional factor for multi-factor authentication based on the other devices present on the same Wi-Fi network. Devices periodically discover all available peer MAC addresses. During subsequent authentication attempts, the network state is compared to previous network states saved under functionally similar conditions. If the devices on the network change significantly, a flag is raised and further action can be triggered. We also demonstrate the solution as a proof of concept.