Introduction

Humans have their natural abilities to recognise people through their voices, faces, and other characteristics. (Physical Traits) Computers must be programmatically instructed how to use the same observable information to perform human recognition. Technology advances, particularly in biometrics, are helping to close the gap between human perception and machine recognition. A priority goal of the use of biometrics is to provide identity assurance or the capability to accurately recognize individuals with greater reliability, speed, and convenience, as well as lower cost. Biometric methods vary greatly and as the technology continues to improve, new options will also come to the future. When considering about authentication Biometrics improvements can play a major role as they are much reliable and secure than existing authentication mechanisms.   

Authentication Mechanisms

There are three fundamental techniques, or factors, are used in authentication mechanisms

1. Something user knows -  Passwords and PINs.
2. Something user has – Smart Cards or Tokens. 
3. Something user is – Biometrics  Authentication. (The measurement of physical characteristics or personal traits)

Passwords and PINs Drawbacks

1. Passwords work reliably only as long as they are not guessed or otherwise disclosed to potential adversaries through accident, subversion, or intentional sharing.
2. If a user chooses his/her favorite color as the password, an acquaintance might guess it and try to log on as the user. Since users chose a common word as a password, 
3. It’s also possible that an attacker might use a dictionary attack to discover users password in a file of hashed passwords. 
4. If the user log in to his/her application across the Internet, An attacker might be able to intercept his/her password while in transit, and then use it himself.

Cards or Tokens Drawbacks

1. Subject to interactive and Offline attacks and Brute-force attacks.
2. If size of the authenticator key length is less the Card or Token is vulnerable.

Biometrics Authentication Advantages

There’s no obvious way for someone to present his/her face differently several times in succession to try to look like some other one. Likewise all the Biometrics traits are hard to manipulate or break by someone else other than the real user. Therefore more than other two authentication mechanisms Biometrics authentication is much more reliable and secure.  
The three basic factors influencing the adoption of biometrics are as follows.

1. Security.
2. Convenience. 
3. Cost.

Types of Biometrics

1. Fingerprint and Hand Geometry.
2. Facial Recognition. 
3. Voice Recognition. 
4. Eye Biometric. (Iris and Retina Scanning) 
5. Signature Recognition and Keystroke Dynamics.
6. Esoteric Biometrics. (DNA and related things)

     
References

• Handbook of Biometrics - Authors: Anil K. Jain, Patrick Flynn, Arun A. Ross Publisher: Springer ISBN-10: 038771040X ISBN-13: 978-0387710402
• Biometric Technologies and Verification Systems - Author: John R. Vacca Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann ISBN-10: 0750679670 ISBN-13: 978-0750679671
• Biometrics For Dummies - Authors: Peter Gregory , Michael A. Simon Publisher: For Dummies ISBN-10: 0470292881 ISBN-13: 978-0470292884

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed