Abstract Having a strong password is vital in maintaining secure access to private or sensitive data. However, strong passwords require good memorization skills, placing a significant burden on human memory and cognitive capacity. Using additional authentication measures, such as token-based access, reduces the need for overly complex passwords while maintaining a high level of security. However, using additional measures introduces additional user interaction during the log-in process. In this work, we propose a password hardening scheme that provides a location based authentication mechanism. We use the information contained within the local WiFi environment to strengthen a user’s password. With our method, the requirements on the user password remain at a reasonable level, while keeping extra user involvement to a minimum. We achieve this by generating a cryptographic key from WiFi beacon frames, which we combine with the user password using a key derivation function. Furthermore, we conduct an analysis to assess the stability of local WiFi environments to determine the practicality of our proposed password hardening scheme.

We present a WiFi signal-based, volatile key extraction system called RoomKey. We derive a room’s key by creating a deterministic key from the ever-changing WiFi environment and investigating the extraction capabilities of a designated area. RoomKey uses wireless beacon frames as a component, which we combine with a strong random key to generate and reconstruct the same volatile key in the room. We provide an exemplary use case using RoomKeyas an authentication factor using the location-specific WiFi environment as an authentication claim. We identified and solved two problems in using location as an authentication factor: location being sensitive to privacy and the location of a user constantly changing. We mitigate privacy concerns by recognizing a particular location without the need to localize its precise geographical coordinates. To overcome the problem of location change, we restrict locations to work environments for laptop usage and allow a per-location-predetermined, designated area (e.g., a room). With the concept RoomKey, we demonstrate the potential of including environmental WiFi measurements for volatile key extraction and show the possibility of creating location-aware and privacy-preserving authentication systems for continuous authentication and adaptive security measures.