BASE: A proposed secure biometric authentication system

Colby G. Crossingham, Sebastian H. von Solms

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The use of biometrics as a secure remote authentication mechanism is hindered by a series of issues. In the case of fingerprints, an attacker can make physical copies of fingerprints by 'lifting' latent fingerprints off a non-porous surface. These lifted fingerprints can be used to illegitimately gain access to an authentication system. Password authentication systems only accept passwords that match 100%, whereas biometric authentication systems match submitted tokens provided they fall within a specified threshold. Without making use of a sufficient encryption scheme, illegitimately replaying a biometric token that has been tweaked slightly could still cause the authentication system to accept the submitted biometric token as a fresh biometric. BASE (Biometric Authentication System Entity), the proposed system, provides a solution to these challenges. As an alternative to current remote authentication systems, the BASE system utilizes a communication protocol that does not make use of encryption, passwords or timestamps, whilst still maintaining the security of the remote authentication process.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPolicies and Research in Identity Management
Subtitle of host publicationFirst IFIP WG11.6 Working Conference on Policies and Research in Identity Management (IDMAN'07)
EditorsElisabeth Leeuw, Simone Fischer-Hübner, Jimmy Tseng, John Borking
Pages91-102
Number of pages12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2008

Publication series

NameIFIP International Federation for Information Processing
Volume261
ISSN (Print)1571-5736

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems and Management

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