KeyNet

Inspiration

As computer science majors at a university, our security needs are different from most. Laptops are often left out or passed around for short periods of time, leaving our machines particularly vulnerable to opportunistic attackers with physical access.

What it does

During setup, KeyNet asks the owner of the machine to type a few hundred characters and develops a profile based on the user's typing patterns. After this, it runs in the background and is able to detect when a different person is using the machine. A variety of steps can be taken when a different user is detected, such as taking a picture with a webcam, starting a keylogger, or locking the computer.

How we built it

We used python to detect key presses, create a user profile based on typing patterns, and detect a different user. We also used python for the responses to a fake user (taking a picture, locking the machine, and/or running a keylogger). We also created a neural net with Tensorflow (python once again) to analyze the typing data.

Challenges we ran into

The neural net was very difficult to put together and required a large amount of training data. As it turns out, it was also not necessary to accurately detect impostors. Though we have a trained and working neural net, we instead compile a set of error values based on the user profile and score the current user by adding those errors.