BIOMETRICS SECURITY TECHNIQUES

Natasha Afridi CT-003

• Biometrics is the measurement and analysis of a person’s measurable personal traits or characteristics.

• After measurement, this information can be used to authenticate a person. This can also be used for other type of measurements.

• The authentication system authenticates your identity and verifies if you are the person you say you are. It, according to the result, allows or denies access to the system.

INTRODUCTION

• To make sure that a person is who he says he is, we take a sample of the physical structure of the person and compare it with the sample or record present in our database.

• Before comparison, a sign-up process is done, where a person gives his biometric sample that is used later to compare and authenticate a user, at the time of authentication.

• The sample at the time of sign-up is saved into the database of the system. When the given sample matches the samples existing in the database, user is authenticated and access is given. And when the given sample does not match the existing record the user is denied access to the system. This process usually takes 2-3 seconds.

BIOMETRICS PROCESS

• In modern approach, Biometric characteristics can be divided in two main classes:– Physiological are related to the shape of the body

and thus it varies from person to person Fingerprints, Face recognition, hand geometry and iris recognition are some examples of this type of Biometric.

– Behavioural are related to the behavior of a person. Some examples in this case are signature, keystroke dynamics and of voice . Sometimes voice is also considered to be a physiological biometric as it varies from person to person.

BIOMETRIC TECHNIQUES

PHYSIOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES

• Connect an apparatus to the computer and it scans the finger of a person and authenticates identity of an individual. If it authenticates the person, it will give the person the access to enter the system. And if it doesn’t authenticate, you are not given access to the system. Fingerprints vary from person to person.

• The have some special characteristics that make them different from the finger print of other person. The fingerprints of a person remain unchanged throughout life, except in case of some injury or damage.

• Fingerprint scanning can be done in a number of ways. There are some systems that scan the distinct patterns on finger.

• Fingerprint systems should be cleaned regularly as dust may affect the reading and the system may not be able to authenticate the user.

FINGERPRINT

• The eye contains a certain structure surrounding the pupil which is known as iris.

• Iris varies from person to person and two irises can never be identical.

• Even the left and right eye irises are different from each other. Here the user is asked to stand couple of inches of inches away from the iris scanner, keeping eye in a certain position

• Iris Scan is a bigger and expensive system, but is very accurate.

IRIS SCANNING

• Hand geometry is basically the analysis and measuring of both hands and fingers. The user is required to place its hand at the hand-scanner with the fingers in proper position as they were at the time of sign-up. A 32 thousand pixel digital camera is used to measure the thickness, length and width of the hands and fingers. There are many different types of hand devices available in the market.

HAND GEOMETRY

• Facial scan is done using the specific characteristics of a human’s face.

• A camera is used to capture the features of a person. It doesn’t compare the whole face’s data with the whole face. Instead compares it from certain parts of the face to the person’s face during the scan.

• Only parts like upper outlines of the eye socket or sides of mouth are matched because these parts are difficult to change with plastic surgery. So it doesn’t matter if the person loses little weight. This technology works great at 320x240 resolutions and 3, 5 frames per second.

FACIAL RECOGNITION

BEHAVIOURAL TECHNIQUES

• The voices of people vary from one to another. This fact was used when devising voice scan technology. The voice of a user is recorded using a microphone reading device. And the system is able to recognize the voice later because of the special characteristics of human voice. It is important that the circumstances at the time of recording and authenticating are same. Things like background noise and equipment’s quality might influence the system. The best part of using this technique is that it requires no expensive equipment.

VOICE RECOGNITION

• This technique uses a special pen and tablet to capture the way user signs its name. As much as the signature is important there are other features that are considered important. It measures when a user’s put the pen on the tablet and when he removes it, the pressure on the table, the speed by which he signs etc. This technique is considered to be very accurate. And by using this technique less people will object to this type of authentication.

SIGNATURE RECOGNITION

• Biometrics is an emerging technology. Less number of people must have used security systems that combine with biometrics techniques. This is because there is very little number of vendors that manufacture these specialized products. And so the prices are very high too. But as more people will get aware of these techniques, the prices will definitely come down. As user acceptance increases, more people will use these techniques in their everyday lives.

• Access control• Identity verification• Law enforcement

APPLICATIONS

• User acceptability– User acceptability is one of the major issues faced by biometrics for various

reasons. Most of the people think that biometric techniques are an intrusion to their personal life. They are concerned that in what ways this information can be used in the future. It might be possible that government keeps track of such information without the users consent. Some might get medical information from these samples. Iris and retina scans may indicate use of drugs. It is certainly not the purpose of the systems detecting information. But the information might fall in wrong hands. There is a possibility that certain contagious diseases might spread if everybody use the same scanner.

• Technical problems– Cost and accuracy are two major technical problems. In most of the cases, we

will need new hardware, software etc. to use a biometric technique. Cost depends on the type of technique we are using. Iris scanner is a lot more expensive than finger print scanner. Finger print scanners are very affordable. With time these techniques will become cheaper and more efficient.

• Intrinsic problems

– Any trait can be stolen. Voices may be recorded and used anywhere. Once the biometrics is stolen there is no way to get it back. Using finger print with PIN or password will be safer. If somebody steals your finger print he will also need your pin or password.

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

• Biometric techniques have been quite successful in the past few years. There are many advantages of this system. But there are also some disadvantages. Organizations need to think before implementing a biometric solution. These are not just for everyone. One day biometric techniques will become an important part of our daily lives.

CONCLUSION

• Biometric Authentication: A Review by Debnath Bhattacharyya1, Rahul Ranjan1, Farkhod Alisherov A.2, and Minkyu Choi3

• Biometrics Authentication Techniques in ATM By 1Sandeep S. Majge and 2Hanmant W. Kulkarni

REFERENCES