What Is Biometric Authentication
The term "biometric authentication" refers to a security method that makes use of an individual's distinctive biological traits, such as their voice, fingerprints, face, or iris. It is employed to confirm people's true identities. Access to both physical and digital resources, including buildings, rooms, and numerous gadgets, is controlled using this method.
The words bio (human) and metric are combined to form the word biometric (measurement). Biometrics, to put it simply, are any measurements of human traits that set one person apart from another.
There is a significant distinction between authentication and identification, even if biometric technologies can combine the two. Identification specifically enquires, "Who are you?" Authentication checks to see if the person is who they claim to be. Based on measurements of your body, biometric identification confirms your identity. By comparing this data to a database, biometric authentication goes a step further. This information is used to identify any person by comparing it to data in the database.
How Does Biometric Authentication Work
Biometric authentication analyses two sets of information: the first is information of the device's owner that has already been collected, and the second is information from the individual who is viewing the device. When the two pieces of information are nearly identical, the system recognizes that the "visitor" and the "owner" are the same person and provides access to them.
The match between the two data sets should be "nearly" the same but not "exactly" the same, it is crucial to remember. This is due to the near impossibility of two sets of biometric data matching perfectly. For instance, there might be a minor stain or a hint of moisture on your finger, which would alter the pattern of the print.
False negatives are drastically decreased when the procedure is designed so that an exact match is not necessary (the device not recognizing your fingerprint). Additionally, it raises the possibility that a bogus fingerprint would be mistaken for a real one.
Now let's see what methods does biometric authentication uses?
Method of Biometric Authentication
A user's own body can be used in a variety of ways to recognize them. The most widely used biometric technologies by customers today are listed below.
Finger Print Scanners
Finger Print scanners have three types; Optical, Capacitive and Ultra sound
- Optical Scanners An optical scanner captures a picture of the finger, analyses the fingerprints, and then combines the information into an identity code.
- Capacitive Scanner Electrical signals transferred from the finger to the scanner are measured using a capacitive scanner. The valleys between the print ridges provide air gaps while the print ridges themselves send electrical current directly into the scanner. Electrical signals transferred from the finger to the scanner are measured using a capacitive scanner. The troughs between the print ridges provide air gaps while the print ridges themselves convey an electrical current directly into the scanner. These contact points and air gaps are combined by a capacitive scanner to create a totally distinct pattern. These are the ones that are found in computers and cellphones.
- Ultrasonic Scanner The coming generations of smartphones will feature ultrasonic scanners. These essentially emit ultrasounds, which are reflected back into the scanner. It generates a finger map that is particular to each person, similar to a capacitive scanner.
Creating Fake Finger Prints
An attacker must first locate a high-quality print with enough of a certain pattern to unlock the smartphone to be secured with a fingerprint. A finger will then be inserted to match the mould after the attacker picks up the fingerprint, places it on a piece of plastic, and moves on.
Once a hacker makes a fake finger, all he needs to do to unlock a phone is set it on the scanner and use his finger to push a button.
Retina Scanners
Due to the fact that the iris and retina do not change much over the course of a person's lifetime, security specialists believe the eye to be one of the most dependable body components for biometric authentication.
The intricate blood arteries in a person's eye are illuminated by infrared light during a retinal scan, making them more discernible than the surrounding tissue. Similar to fingerprints, no two people's retinal patterns are the same.
Iris Scanners
Iris scanners rely on sharp photos or videos of a person's one or both irises. Irises are also different to each person. However, iris scanners have shown that it is simple to impersonate a person with just a clear photo of their face or eyes. When it comes to biometrics, iris has a number of significant benefits over fingerprints:
- Every time you touch anything, you don't always share information with others.
- The iris hardly changes over the course of a person's life. A fingerprint, on the other hand, can be soiled, muddled, or removed.
- With sweaty or unclean hands, fingerprints cannot be read. Irises, however, don't experience this issue.
The iris scanner's main significant drawback is that it can be fooled by clear pictures of your face or eyes to unlock the device.
Despite of these drawbacks, the technology is employed in banks, airports, and other important structures because of its security advantages. Naturally, it is used in conjunction with a variety of authentication systems, much like other security measures.
How it works is like the scanner will take an image of your eye using both visible light and infrared light, during the insertion phase, and will pick up details that would not otherwise be visible.
The technology blurs out any extraneous characteristics, such the eyelids, before encrypting the data into a mathematical form when it records a person's iris.
The iris scanner will yet again produce infrared light during verification to uncover these covert features. Since an iris scanner generates its own light, it can operate in dim or dark environments.
Tricking the iris scanner Some iris scanners can be tricked by simply snapping a photo with an inexpensive camera in night mode, printing the iris on paper, and then donning wet contact lenses to simulate a real eyeball.
Speaker Recognition
Speaker recognition, as opposed to voice recognition, tries to figure out who is speaking. This approach is unrelated to what is being spoken. Only the speaker is intended to be identified.
When a speaker speaks, specialized software separates their words into formants, which are packets of frequencies. The user's accent is included in these packets of formats, and together they create the user's voiceprint.
Speaker Recognition technology:
- Depends on text This means it unlocks a device after recognizing certain words or phrases. or:
- Doesn't depend on textIt tries to recognize the words, but overlooks what is being said.
The speaker recognition approach, in contrast to the other methods listed above, has a severe flaw, that the background disturbances can easily distort the speaker's voice and render it unrecognizable.
Voice activation on the user's smartphone can be awkward
However, the main issue with speech recognition is how simple it is to record someone's voice accurately.
Face Recognition System
In general, there are several ways that facial recognition systems approach biometric identification.
The fundamental technique entails extracting your face features from an image (such as your eyes, nose, lips-to-nose distance, etc.) and matching them against other images.
Your unique lines, beauty marks, wrinkles, etc. are mathematically transformed into a space using skin texture analysis, which is then compared with other photographs.
With cosmetics, a mask, or occasionally by concealing a portion of your face, you can easily fool both of these. Thermal imaging and other technologies improved at this period until solutions like Apple Face ID began to be widely used.
Hand And Finger Geometry
Our hands are very different from other people's hands, even though they are not as distinctive as prints, iris scanners, or three-dimensional face mapping. They can thus be used as an authentication method in specific circumstances.
A hand geometry scanner may measure things like the thickness of the palm, the size and spacing of the fingers, and more.
Its affordability and ease of use are its main benefits. It also has a number of significant drawbacks. Over time, hand size could change. Mobility issues might be caused by health issues. More importantly, the hand is not as distinctive, hence the system's accuracy is poor.
Vein Geometry
Even identical twins do not share the same vein structure because of the completely unique way that our veins are arranged. In actuality, there are differences between the general shapes of our two hands.
Veins have an advantage over other materials because they can only be seen in carefully regulated environments, making them very difficult to copy and steal.
Your veins will be apparent in the image since the Vein Geometry Scanner uses near-infrared light to illuminate them.
Scanning Based On DNA
The most trustworthy technique of identifying a person is through deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). It is mostly digital and doesn't alter over the course of a person's lifespan. No two people are genetically identical because DNA is the structure that governs our physical and intellectual characteristics. Only twins experience this.
DNA biometrics is not a 100% accurate form of identification, though. If DNA testing is not carried out properly by forensic professionals, a person's identification code may be altered.
Behavioral Identifiers
Gait recognition and typing recognition are other names for this technique. Typing recognition uses specific aspects of a person's typing to identify them, such as how quickly they type, how quickly they move from one letter to the next, or where on the keyboard they are.
Gait Recognition is a sort of behavioural biometric authentication that uses people's walking patterns and speeds to identify and authenticate them. Gait has the benefit of being less intrusive than other first-generation biometric techniques like fingerprint and iris identification. It doesn't necessitate interacting with anyone.
This was our article today in which we looked at what biometric identification and authentication is, how it works and what are its procedures. If you liked our post or want to give your opinion about it, then do tell in the comment section and also share this article with your friends.
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