{"id":8562,"date":"2006-09-21T07:48:00","date_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=8562"},"modified":"2006-09-21T07:48:00","modified_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","slug":"biometrics-pah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=8562","title":{"rendered":"Biometrics – Pah!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Riley mentions<\/a> a piece done<\/a> in the new series of Mythbusters, the Discovery Channel show, on his blog.\u00a0 We have all heard of security conscious organisations that decide to use thumb\/fingerprint readers to secure their computer rooms, etc.\u00a0 We’ve also heard the urban legends"myths" that said systems can be cracked pretty easily.<\/p>\n

Well, it appears they can!\u00a0 The Mythbusters crew succesfully lifted\u00a0a fingerprint from the reader and made latex and ballistics gel copies of it.\u00a0 Using these (the latex sheet needed to be licked to work) they were able to succesfully fool the reader.\u00a0 This was despite the manufacturer claiming that the reader checked pulse, sweat and temperature.\u00a0 Worse again, they even beat it with a photocopy of a finger print.<\/p>\n

As Steve mentions in his blog, biometrics by themselves are not a secure authentication mechanism.\u00a0 Secure authentication requires two factors such as "What you have" (biometric, smart card, etc) and "what you know" (passphrase, PIN, etc).\u00a0 Either one by itself can be easilly comprimised but together they are pretty secure.<\/p>\n

So, the lesson here is, if your company uses fingerprint readers then you don’t need to worry about your finger being chopped off by attackers … it’s much easier to lift the print at the scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Riley mentions a piece done in the new series of Mythbusters, the Discovery Channel show, on his blog.\u00a0 We have all heard of security conscious organisations that decide to use thumb\/fingerprint readers to secure their computer rooms, etc.\u00a0 We’ve also heard the urban legends"myths" that said systems can be cracked pretty easily. Well, it … Continue reading “Biometrics – Pah!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t