"smudge attack" meaning in English

See smudge attack in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /smʌdʒ əˈtæk/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation] Audio: en-au-smudge attack.ogg Forms: smudge attacks [plural]
Etymology: smudge + attack; coined in 2010 by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Computer and Information Science in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA: see the quotation. Head templates: {{en-noun}} smudge attack (plural smudge attacks)
  1. (computer security) A method used to crack the password of a touchscreen device by analysing the oily smears left on the device's screen by the user's fingers. Wikipedia link: University of Pennsylvania Categories (topical): Computer security
    Sense id: en-smudge_attack-en-noun-DzPeYvYt Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "smudge + attack; coined in 2010 by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Computer and Information Science in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA: see the quotation.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "smudge attacks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "smudge attack (plural smudge attacks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "smudge"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
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          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
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        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Computer security",
          "orig": "en:Computer security",
          "parents": [
            "Computing",
            "Technology",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010 August 9, Adam J. Aviv, Katherine Gibson, Evan Mossop, Matt Blaze, Jonathan M. Smith, “Smudge Attacks on Smartphone Touch Screens”, in WOOT '10: 4th USENIX Workshop on Offensive Technologies, August 9, 2010, Washington, D.C.; USENIX, archived from the original on 2016-07-21:",
          "text": "Touch screens are touched, so oily residues, or smudges, remain on the screen as a side effect. Latent smudges may be usable to infer recently and frequently touched areas of the screen – a form of information leakage. This paper explores the feasibility of smudge attacks, where an attacker, by inspection of smudges, attempts to extract sensitive information about recent user input.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Yunlim Ku with Okkyung Choi, Kangseok Kim, Taeshik Shon, Manpyo Hong, Hongjin Yeh, and Jai-Hoon Kim, “Extended OTP Mechanism Based on Graphical Password Method”, in James J[ong Hyuk] Park, Victor C. M. Leung, Cho-Li Wang, Taeshik Shon, editors, Future Information Technology, Application, and Service: FutureTech 2012 Volume 1, Dordrecht: Springer, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 204:",
          "text": "The OTP [one-time password] mechanism that financial institutions adopted utilizes a one-time password displayed on OTP device, so it is vulnerable to shoulder surfing attacks (SSA) and smudge attacks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, “Information Security”, in Q. Ashton Acton, editor, Issues in Information Science—Information Technology, Systems, and Security, Atlanta, Ga.: ScholarlyEditions, published 2013, →ISBN, page 200:",
          "text": "However, the fixed keypad lock can be easily unlocked by brute force attacks and the pattern lock is vulnerable to smudge attacks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 February 22, Alex Wawro, Marco Chiappetta, “Windows 8 picture passwords: Their great untapped potential”, in PC World, San Francisco, Calif.: PCW Communications, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2016-08-09:",
          "text": "[A]rguably, picture passwords are a little more secure on desktops than on touchscreen devices, because you don't have to worry about anyone guessing your gesture password by examining your monitor for greasy fingerprints. That last scenario may sound like something out of a trashy espionage thriller, but the threat of a \"smudge attack\" is real enough to warrant serious study. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania coined the term in 2010 when they were able to successfully deduce gesture passwords used to unlock Android phones from smudge marks left on the screen.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A method used to crack the password of a touchscreen device by analysing the oily smears left on the device's screen by the user's fingers."
      ],
      "id": "en-smudge_attack-en-noun-DzPeYvYt",
      "links": [
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        [
          "method",
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          "crack",
          "crack"
        ],
        [
          "password",
          "password"
        ],
        [
          "touchscreen",
          "touchscreen"
        ],
        [
          "device",
          "device"
        ],
        [
          "analysing",
          "analyse"
        ],
        [
          "oily",
          "oily"
        ],
        [
          "smear",
          "smear"
        ],
        [
          "screen",
          "screen#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "user",
          "user"
        ],
        [
          "fingers",
          "finger#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "computer security",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(computer security) A method used to crack the password of a touchscreen device by analysing the oily smears left on the device's screen by the user's fingers."
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "University of Pennsylvania"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/smʌdʒ əˈtæk/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-au-smudge attack.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/43/En-au-smudge_attack.ogg/En-au-smudge_attack.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/En-au-smudge_attack.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "smudge attack"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "smudge + attack; coined in 2010 by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Computer and Information Science in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA: see the quotation.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "smudge attacks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "smudge attack (plural smudge attacks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "smudge"
  ],
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010 August 9, Adam J. Aviv, Katherine Gibson, Evan Mossop, Matt Blaze, Jonathan M. Smith, “Smudge Attacks on Smartphone Touch Screens”, in WOOT '10: 4th USENIX Workshop on Offensive Technologies, August 9, 2010, Washington, D.C.; USENIX, archived from the original on 2016-07-21:",
          "text": "Touch screens are touched, so oily residues, or smudges, remain on the screen as a side effect. Latent smudges may be usable to infer recently and frequently touched areas of the screen – a form of information leakage. This paper explores the feasibility of smudge attacks, where an attacker, by inspection of smudges, attempts to extract sensitive information about recent user input.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Yunlim Ku with Okkyung Choi, Kangseok Kim, Taeshik Shon, Manpyo Hong, Hongjin Yeh, and Jai-Hoon Kim, “Extended OTP Mechanism Based on Graphical Password Method”, in James J[ong Hyuk] Park, Victor C. M. Leung, Cho-Li Wang, Taeshik Shon, editors, Future Information Technology, Application, and Service: FutureTech 2012 Volume 1, Dordrecht: Springer, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 204:",
          "text": "The OTP [one-time password] mechanism that financial institutions adopted utilizes a one-time password displayed on OTP device, so it is vulnerable to shoulder surfing attacks (SSA) and smudge attacks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, “Information Security”, in Q. Ashton Acton, editor, Issues in Information Science—Information Technology, Systems, and Security, Atlanta, Ga.: ScholarlyEditions, published 2013, →ISBN, page 200:",
          "text": "However, the fixed keypad lock can be easily unlocked by brute force attacks and the pattern lock is vulnerable to smudge attacks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 February 22, Alex Wawro, Marco Chiappetta, “Windows 8 picture passwords: Their great untapped potential”, in PC World, San Francisco, Calif.: PCW Communications, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2016-08-09:",
          "text": "[A]rguably, picture passwords are a little more secure on desktops than on touchscreen devices, because you don't have to worry about anyone guessing your gesture password by examining your monitor for greasy fingerprints. That last scenario may sound like something out of a trashy espionage thriller, but the threat of a \"smudge attack\" is real enough to warrant serious study. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania coined the term in 2010 when they were able to successfully deduce gesture passwords used to unlock Android phones from smudge marks left on the screen.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A method used to crack the password of a touchscreen device by analysing the oily smears left on the device's screen by the user's fingers."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "computer security",
          "computer security"
        ],
        [
          "method",
          "method"
        ],
        [
          "crack",
          "crack"
        ],
        [
          "password",
          "password"
        ],
        [
          "touchscreen",
          "touchscreen"
        ],
        [
          "device",
          "device"
        ],
        [
          "analysing",
          "analyse"
        ],
        [
          "oily",
          "oily"
        ],
        [
          "smear",
          "smear"
        ],
        [
          "screen",
          "screen#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "user",
          "user"
        ],
        [
          "fingers",
          "finger#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "computer security",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(computer security) A method used to crack the password of a touchscreen device by analysing the oily smears left on the device's screen by the user's fingers."
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "University of Pennsylvania"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/smʌdʒ əˈtæk/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-au-smudge attack.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/43/En-au-smudge_attack.ogg/En-au-smudge_attack.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/En-au-smudge_attack.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "smudge attack"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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