TrustGlass: Human-Computer Trusted Paths with Augmented Reality Smart Glasses

Humans constantly interact with computing devices. Many times, these interactions involve sensitive information and/or sensitive commands, leading to the need for trusted paths between humans and computers. For computer-to-computer interactions, secure communication is not an issue thanks to cryptographic protocols such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) and the IP Security Protocol (IPSec). However, the same does not yet apply to interactions between humans and computers due to the inability of humans to execute non-trivial cryptographic algorithms. This results in interactions that are vulnerable to shoulder surfing, man-in-the-browser malware, and web page spoofing, among other attacks. This consequently puts at risk the use of sensitive services in uncontrolled environments.We present TrustGlass, a scheme that uses augmented reality smart glasses to solve this security problem. TrustGlass uses such glasses to extend human capabilities, to execute the cryptographic algorithms needed to establish a trusted path between the user and the trusted service, which can be executed in a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). With this approach, we can guarantee that only the user equipped with the glasses is capable of interacting with the service. We implemented TrustGlass using commercial smart glasses and show experimental performance and usability results.