A Prototype Implementation of Continuous Authentication for Tactical Applications

Recent advances in wireless and computing technology have led to accelerated efforts to equip soldiers at the tactical level with sophisticated handheld communications devices to share situational awareness data. An important consideration is how to secure these devices, and how to ensure that the users of the devices have not been compromised. This paper presents the details of prototyping activity we conducted in which two commercial biometric devices were integrated with a handheld communication device to perform continuous user authentication. We discuss the design of the prototype, its performance, and lessons learned that apply to future efforts at implementing continuous authentication in a military-focused setting.