Advancing the Understanding of Android Unlocking and Usage

1. PROBLEM MOTIVATION Given the fact that personal mobile devices provide access to and/or store a great deal of personal and sensitive data, including passwords, contacts, files, emails, etc., it is not surprising that unauthorized access to the device is one of the highest security risks for smartphone users. To protect such data and services from unauthorized access, some smartphone users lock their phones using PIN, password, biometrics and DAP (“draw a pattern”). Yet, others don’t, risking the data and online services accessible through their devices, mainly because of the inconvenience of unlocking, lack of motivation and awareness. One way to improve user behaviour is to offer them more usable unlocking mechanisms, without sacrificing the security. It remains an open problem, however, how to optimize both security and usability for smartphone unlocking mechanisms. Thus, it is important for researchers to understand the interplay between security and usability of unlocking mechanisms in situ. To this end, we are preparing a longitudinal field study, in the course of which our monitoring app installed on the participants’ Android smartphones will collect detailed relevant data.