Gaming the Gamer: Adversarial Fingerprinting of Gaming Apps using Smartphone Accelerometers

Richard Matovu, Abdul Serwadda

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

A wide range of mobile applications continuously access motion and orientation sensor data to learn patterns for their operations. This unfeterred access to rich streams of data from multiple sensors raises the question of whether sensitive personal information might be inferred by these sensor-oriented applications. In this paper, we demonstrate a previously unexplored privacy threat that could be posed by a rogue background mobile app accessing sensor data on a smartphone. The core driving mechanism behind the attack is that the unique GUI components of different apps cause unique sensor data patterns during routine usage of the apps. This in turn makes it possible to fingerprint a specific app and identify it based on its associated sensor signature. Using the most popular mobile gaming apps as a case study, we show the attack to attain up to 75% in one attempt and about 93% in the three attempts. The paper further questions the idea of apps having access to motion and orientation sensor data without asking for permission from the end-users.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2018 9th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2018
EditorsSatyajit Chakrabarti, Himadri Nath Saha
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages489-496
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781538676936
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2018
Event9th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2018 - New York City, United States
Duration: Nov 8 2018Nov 10 2018

Publication series

Name2018 9th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2018

Conference

Conference9th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew York City
Period11/8/1811/10/18

Keywords

  • Accelerometer
  • Adversarial Fingerprinting
  • Gyroscope.

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