Security News > 2022 > February > Your Graphics Card Fingerprint Can Be Used to Track Your Activities Across the Web

Researchers have demonstrated a new type of fingerprinting technique that exploits a machine's graphics processing unit as a means to track users across the web persistently.

A device fingerprint or machine fingerprint is information that is collected about the hardware, installed software, as well as the web browser and its associated add-ons from a remote computing device for the purpose of unique identification.

On the one hand, a fingerprint algorithm may allow a service provider to detect and prevent identity theft and credit card fraud.

Browser fingerprinting, in a similar vein, primarily relies on stitching together key pieces of information gleaned from the browser to create the fingerprint.

At its core, the proposed tracking system involves measuring the time required to render different graphics primitives using the WebGL API, each targeting different execution units that comprise a GPU, to create a fingerprint trace that's then fed into a deep learning network to uniquely identify the specific device that generated it.

In an evaluation setup constituting 88 devices, including Windows 10 desktops, Apple Mac mini devices, and multiple generations of Samsung Galaxy smartphones, the researchers found that when used in conjunction with state-of-the-art fingerprint linking algorithms like FP-STALKER, DrawnApart extended the median average tracking period from 17.5 days to 28 days.

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2022/01/your-graphics-card-fingerprint-can-be.html