Duress code

Last updated

A duress code is a covert distress signal used by an individual who is being coerced by one or more hostile persons. It is used to warn others that they are being forced to do something against their will. Typically, the warning is given via some innocuous signal embedded in normal communication, such as a code-word or phrase spoken during conversation to alert other personnel. Alternatively, the signal may be incorporated into the authentication process itself, typically in the form of a panic password, distress password, or duress PIN that is distinct from the user's normal password or PIN. These concepts are related to a panic alarm and often achieve the same outcome.

Contents

Civilian usage

An alarm system with a keypad; entering the duress code and pressing OFF disarms the system normally but notifies police. Honeywell home alarm.JPG
An alarm system with a keypad; entering the duress code and pressing OFF disarms the system normally but notifies police.

Some home and property alarm systems have duress PINs, where the last two digits of the reset code are switched around. Entering the code when under duress from an assailant can trigger a silent alarm, alerting police or security personnel in a covert manner. The implementation of this feature has not been without controversy, as it has been claimed to lead to false alarms. [1] A similar mechanism, SafetyPIN, has been proposed for use in ATMs. In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report studying the viability of such mechanisms for ATMs. [2] They noted duress PINs have never been actually implemented in any ATM, and conclude that the costs of deployment outweighs the likelihood they will actually deter criminal activity.

When a duress PIN is used to trigger a silent alarm, an adversary can always request the PIN in advance and ensure the appropriately modified PIN is entered instead. If the adversary does not know which PIN is correct, they may choose randomly between the two possible codes allowing them to succeed half of the time. [3]

In scenarios where a panic password is used to limit access control, instead of triggering an alarm, it is insufficient to have a single panic password. If the adversary knows the system, a common assumption, then they will simply force the user to authenticate twice using different passwords and gain access on at least one of the two attempts. More complex panic password schemes have been proposed to address this problem. [3] [4]

For cases where verbal communication (e.g. via cell phone) is possible with family member or friend, a covert phrase can be used to signal duress. In the slim chance that a captor allows the person in duress to use their cell phone (e.g. to obtain a PIN), there is a limited opportunity to use a duress code. Because conversations are often being monitored by a captor, they must be subtle and short. Ideally, the use of a duress code has been confirmed before the current situation, so the family member or friend has verifiable evidence that something is wrong, and when the authorities are notified aren't just limited to speculation. Examples would include asking about someone (or something) who does not exist. For example, a person might use "What is Cindy barking at?" if she knows that either the dog has a different name or that there is no dog. Another example, which is also a widely shared urban legend, would be a person calling 911 for help and pretending to order pizza delivery. [5] While generally taken as an urban legend, this did happen in Brazil. [6]

In addition to a duress code, there is duress activity. This may include the duressed individual withdrawing cash from an ATM using a specific credit card, instead of using their debit card. Many credit card companies allow for email alerts to be set up when specific activity occurs. There are technical issues that could pose problems, such as a delay in notification, cellular network availability, and the fact that a location is not disclosed, only the activity.

Civilian and commercial aircraft can use transponder code 7500 as a duress code to indicate hijacking. [7] [8] Airlines maintain a verbal hijack code, as well. [9]

Military usage

A World War II duress code was used over the telephone by SOE agents in occupied Europe, and involved giving a coded answer when someone checked whether it was convenient to visit a safe-house. If it was genuinely safe to visit, the answer would be "No, I'm too busy." However, if the safe-house had been compromised (e.g. the Nazis had captured it, forcing the occupants to answer the phone at gunpoint in order to lure in other members of the SOE network) the captured agent would say "Yes, come on over." Having been warned that the safe-house had been compromised, the other agent would hang up the phone and immediately inform his team-members so that they could take appropriate action. Typically, this meant using escape and evasion procedures, before the captured agent was tortured by the Gestapo and forced to give incriminating information such as names and addresses.[ citation needed ]

The Englandspiel is perhaps the most notorious case of a duress code being ignored, where captured Dutch SOE agent Huub Lauwers sent messages with deliberate errors to indicate that he had been turned but the missing security checks were ignored and the Germans were able to thoroughly compromise the SOE's operations in Holland, killing 50 out of 54 agents inserted and shooting down many of the planes that brought them.

In a major Cold War incident in 1968, the US Navy ship USS Pueblo was attacked and captured by North Korean forces, and the crew was abused and tortured during the subsequent 11 months. During that period, the North Koreans used the US crew for propaganda purposes, but the crew signaled their duress situation by secretly giving them "the finger" in staged photos. [10]

US Navy Admiral Jeremiah Denton became famous for blinking out the word "TORTURE" in Morse code during a propaganda television broadcast when he was captured by North Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War.

See also

Related Research Articles

An authenticator is a means used to confirm a user's identity, that is, to perform digital authentication. A person authenticates to a computer system or application by demonstrating that he or she has possession and control of an authenticator. In the simplest case, the authenticator is a common password.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Authentication</span> Act of proving an assertion, often the identity of a computer system user

Authentication is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicating a person or thing's identity, authentication is the process of verifying that identity. It might involve validating personal identity documents, verifying the authenticity of a website with a digital certificate, determining the age of an artifact by carbon dating, or ensuring that a product or document is not counterfeit.

Keystroke logging, often referred to as keylogging or keyboard capturing, is the action of recording (logging) the keys struck on a keyboard, typically covertly, so that a person using the keyboard is unaware that their actions are being monitored. Data can then be retrieved by the person operating the logging program. A keystroke recorder or keylogger can be either software or hardware.

In cryptography and computer security, a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack or on-path attack is a cyberattack where the attacker secretly relays and possibly alters the communications between two parties who believe that they are directly communicating with each other, as the attacker has inserted themselves between the two parties.

RSA SecurID, formerly referred to as SecurID, is a mechanism developed by RSA for performing two-factor authentication for a user to a network resource.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personal identification number</span> PIN code

A personal identification number (PIN), or sometimes redundantly a PIN number or PIN code, is a numeric passcode used in the process of authenticating a user accessing a system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EMV</span> Smart payment card standard

EMV is a payment method based on a technical standard for smart payment cards and for payment terminals and automated teller machines which can accept them. EMV stands for "Europay, Mastercard, and Visa", the three companies that created the standard.

A replay attack is a form of network attack in which valid data transmission is maliciously or fraudulently repeated or delayed. This is carried out either by the originator or by an adversary who intercepts the data and re-transmits it, possibly as part of a spoofing attack by IP packet substitution. This is one of the lower-tier versions of a man-in-the-middle attack. Replay attacks are usually passive in nature.

Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication scheme that allows a user to log in with a single ID to any of several related, yet independent, software systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">One-time password</span> Password that can only be used once

A one-time password (OTP), also known as a one-time PIN, one-time authorization code (OTAC) or dynamic password, is a password that is valid for only one login session or transaction, on a computer system or other digital device. OTPs avoid several shortcomings that are associated with traditional (static) password-based authentication; a number of implementations also incorporate two-factor authentication by ensuring that the one-time password requires access to something a person has as well as something a person knows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tradecraft</span> Espionage techniques

Tradecraft, within the intelligence community, refers to the techniques, methods, and technologies used in modern espionage (spying) and generally as part of the activity of intelligence assessment. This includes general topics or techniques, or the specific techniques of a nation or organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Panic button</span> Device that alerts others to the presence of an emergency

A panic alarm is an electronic device that can easily be activated to request help during an emergency where danger to persons or property exists. It is designed to contact assistance quicker, easier, and simpler than a conventional phone call.

3-D Secure is a protocol designed to be an additional security layer for online credit and debit card transactions. The name refers to the "three domains" which interact using the protocol: the merchant/acquirer domain, the issuer domain, and the interoperability domain.

In computer security, shoulder surfing is a type of social engineering technique used to obtain information such as personal identification numbers (PINs), passwords and other confidential data by looking over the victim's shoulder. Unauthorized users watch the keystrokes inputted on a device or listen to sensitive information being spoken, which is also known as eavesdropping.

In computer science, session hijacking, sometimes also known as cookie hijacking, is the exploitation of a valid computer session—sometimes also called a session key—to gain unauthorized access to information or services in a computer system. In particular, it is used to refer to the theft of a magic cookie used to authenticate a user to a remote server. It has particular relevance to web developers, as the HTTP cookies used to maintain a session on many websites can be easily stolen by an attacker using an intermediary computer or with access to the saved cookies on the victim's computer. After successfully stealing appropriate session cookies an adversary might use the Pass the Cookie technique to perform session hijacking. Cookie hijacking is commonly used against client authentication on the internet. Modern web browsers use cookie protection mechanisms to protect the web from being attacked.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SMS banking</span> Form of mobile banking

SMS banking' is a form of mobile banking. It is a facility used by some banks or other financial institutions to send messages to customers' mobile phones using SMS messaging, or a service provided by them which enables customers to perform some financial transactions using SMS.

ATM SafetyPIN software is a software application that would allow users of automated teller machines (ATMs) to alert law enforcement of a forced cash withdrawal by entering their personal identification number (PIN) in reverse order. The system was patented by Illinois lawyer Joseph Zingher.

Multi-factor authentication is an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or application only after successfully presenting two or more pieces of evidence to an authentication mechanism. MFA protects personal data—which may include personal identification or financial assets—from being accessed by an unauthorized third party that may have been able to discover, for example, a single password.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smudge attack</span> Discerning a password via screen smudges

A smudge attack is an information extraction attack that discerns the password input of a touchscreen device such as a cell phone or tablet computer from fingerprint smudges. A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania were the first to investigate this type of attack in 2010. An attack occurs when an unauthorized user is in possession or is nearby the device of interest. The attacker relies on detecting the oily smudges produced and left behind by the user's fingers to find the pattern or code needed to access the device and its contents. Simple cameras, lights, fingerprint powder, and image processing software can be used to capture the fingerprint deposits created when the user unlocks their device. Under proper lighting and camera settings, the finger smudges can be easily detected, and the heaviest smudges can be used to infer the most frequent input swipes or taps from the user.

A SIM swap scam is a type of account takeover fraud that generally targets a weakness in two-factor authentication and two-step verification in which the second factor or step is a text message (SMS) or call placed to a mobile telephone.

References

  1. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-04-11. Retrieved 2007-03-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ↑ "FTC Issues Report On Emergency Technology for Use With ATMs". Federal Trade Commission. 2010-05-07. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  3. 1 2 J. Clark and U. Hengartner. Panic Passwords: Authenticating under duress Archived 2013-07-22 at the Wayback Machine . USENIX Hot Topics in Security (HotSec) 2008
  4. ↑ Stefanov, Emil; Atallah, Mikhail (October 8, 2010). "Duress detection for authentication attacks against multiple administrators". Proceedings of the 2010 ACM workshop on Insider threats - Insider Threats '10. Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 37–46. doi:10.1145/1866886.1866895. ISBN   9781450300926. S2CID   14679137 – via ACM Digital Library.
  5. ↑ "FACT CHECK: In Case of Intruder, Should You Ask 911 for a Pizza?". Snopes.com.
  6. ↑ "Ouça áudio de mulher que ligou para a PM e fingiu pedir pizza para denunciar violência doméstica". G1.
  7. ↑ Transport Canada (20 May 2010). "TP 14371 — Transport Canada Aeronautical Information Manual (TC AIM) RAC 1.9 Transponder Operation" . Retrieved 21 August 2010.
  8. ↑ US Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration. "JO 7110.66D, National Beacon Code Allocation Plan". US Government. Retrieved 26 April 2012.
  9. ↑ "CNN Transcripts". CNN. 15 March 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2014. ...every airline trains on a verbal hijack code...
  10. ↑ Stu, Russell. "The Digit Affair". USS Pueblo Veteran's Association. Archived from the original on 1 October 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2010. The finger became an integral part of our anti-propaganda campaign. Any time a camera appeared, so did the fingers.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.