CPU-Auth: Device Fingerprinting for Authentication via DVFS Side-Channel

Ryan Swift

Lack of effective authentication has resulted in numerous security and privacy breaches, including unauthorized access to protected information, identity theft, and fraud. One approach to mitigating such attacks is Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), in which users must provide multiple pieces of information for authentication. Some secondary authentication factors include SMS text verification codes, biometrics, and tokens. Each contains at least one notable flaw: SMS is notoriously insecure; biometrics rely upon access to sensitive personal data; and tokens require dependence on third-party providers (e.g. OAuth providers). This work explores CPU-Auth, a novel authentication mechanism based on unique variations in the physical characteristics of the CPU of a computing device. By measuring the behavior of the Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) governor remotely from within a browser, unique properties of the CPU can be leveraged to establish a hardware-based device fingerprint for use in CPU-Auth. The performance of CPU-Auth is evaluated on over 50,000 data traces using distance-based and deep learning methods. CPU-Auth is part of a larger research project, and the…