Abstract: A method for authenticating identity of a user using keystrokes of the user includes receiving as input the keystrokes made by the user, extracting cognitive typing rhythm from the keystroke to provide features, wherein each of the features is a sequence of digraphs of a specific word, and providing active authentication using the features where the user is a legitimate user. A system for authenticating identity of a user using keystrokes of the user includes a plurality of stored profiles stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium, a sensor module for acquiring the keystrokes of the user to provide biometric data, a feature extraction module to process the biometric data and extract a feature set to represent the biometric data, a matching module to compare feature from the feature set with the stored profiles using a classifier to generate matching scores, a decision module configured to use the matching scores from multiple classifiers to verify a user's identity.