Investigating Wireless RSSI as a Secondary Authentication Method in Smartphones

This paper presents a preliminary exploration of utilizing the wireless received signal strength indicator (RSSI) as a secondary authentication method in smartphones. We propose AuthRSSI - a gesture based authentication system that uses the RSSI measurements from a smartphone connected to an indoor wireless network to identify a pre-determined user pattern. The key idea is that users will create a pattern in the air using a smart-phone, and the changes in the wireless channel can be analyzed to authenticate the user. AuthRSSI will serve as an important component in a proposed larger multi-sensory authentication system that combines the RSSI, Channel State Information (CSI) as well as built-in motion sensors in the smartphone like the accelerometer and gyroscope to accurately classify personalized user patterns and serve as a secondary authentication system that is complementary to existing methods in use today. Our findings demonstrate a strong correlation between RSSI measurements and user device movement, particularly in scenarios with a clear line-of-sight path.