Jonathan H. Connell

Enhancing security and privacy in biometrics-based authentication systems

Because biometrics-based authentication offers several advantages over other authentication methods, there has been a significant surge in the use of biometrics for user authentication in recent years. It is important that such biometrics-based authentication systems be designed to withstand attacks when employed in security-critical applications, especially in unattended remote applications such as e-commerce. In this paper we outline the inherent strengths of biometrics-based authentication, identify the weak links in systems employing biometrics-based authentication, and present new solutions for eliminating some of these weak links. Although, for illustration purposes, fingerprint authentication is used throughout, our analysis extends to other biometrics-based methods.

An Analysis of Minutiae Matching Strength

In recent years there has been exponential growth in the use of biometrics for user authentication applications because biometrics-based authentication offers several advantages over knowledge and possession-based methods such as password/PIN-based systems. However, it is important that biometrics-based authentication systems be designed to withstand different sources of attacks on the system when employed in security-critical applications. This is even more important for unattended remote applications such as e-commerce. In this paper we outline the potential security holes in a biometrics-based authentication scheme, quantify the numerical strength of one method of fingerprint matching, then discuss how to combat some of the remaining weaknesses.

Biometric perils and patches

Abstract Biometrics authentication offers many advantages over conventional authentication systems that rely on possessions or special knowledge. With conventional technology, often the mere possession of an employee ID card is proof of ID, while a password potentially can be used by large groups of colleagues for long times without change. The fact that biometrics authentication is non-repudiable (hard to refute) and, yet, convenient, is among its most important advantages. Biometrics systems, however, suffer from some inherent biometrics-specific security threats. These threats are mainly related to the use of digital signals and the need for additional input devices, though we also discuss brute-force attacks of biometrics systems. There are also problems common to any pattern recognition system. These include “wolves” and “lambs”, and a new group we call “chameleons”. An additional issue with the use of biometrics is the invasion of privacy because the user has to enroll with an image of a body part. We discuss these issues and suggest some methods for mitigating their impact.

Smart video surveillance: exploring the concept of multiscale spatiotemporal tracking

Situation awareness is the key to security. Awareness requires information that spans multiple scales of space and time. Smart video surveillance systems are capable of enhancing situational awareness across multiple scales of space and time. However, at the present time, the component technologies are evolving in isolation. To provide comprehensive, nonintrusive situation awareness, it is imperative to address the challenge of multiscale, spatiotemporal tracking. This article explores the concepts of multiscale spatiotemporal tracking through the use of real-time video analysis, active cameras, multiple object models, and long-term pattern analysis to provide comprehensive situation awareness.

SSS: a hybrid architecture applied to robot navigation

Describes a three-layer architecture, SSS, for robot control. It combines a servo-control layer, a subsumption layer, and a symbolic layer in a way that allows the advantages of each technique to be fully exploited. The key to this synergy is the interface between the individual subsystems. The design of situation recognizers that bridge the gap between the servo and subsumption layers, and event detectors that link the subsumption layers and symbolic layers are discussed. The development of such a combined system is illustrated by a fully implemented indoor navigation example. The resulting robot was able to automatically map office building environments, and smoothly navigate through them at the rapid speed of 2.6 feet per second.<<ETX>>

Cancelable Biometrics: A Case Study in Fingerprints

Biometrics offers usability advantages over traditional token and password based authentication schemes, but raises privacy and security concerns. When compromised, credit cards and passwords can be revoked or replaced while biometrics are permanently associated with a user and cannot be replaced. Cancelable biometrics attempts to solve this by constructing revocable biometric templates. We present several constructs for cancelable templates using feature domain transformations and empirically examine their efficacy. We also present a method for accurate registration which is a key step in building cancelable transforms. The overall approach has been tested using large databases and our results demonstrate that without losing much accuracy, we can build a large number of cancelable transforms for fingerprints

Secure data hiding in wavelet compressed fingerprint images

With the rapid growth of the Internet, electronic commerce revenue now amounts to several billion US dollars. To avoid fraud and misuse, buyers and sellers desire more secure methods of authentication than todays userid and password combinations. Automated biometrics technology in general, and fingerprints in particular, provide an accurate and reliable authentication method. However, fingerprint-based authentication requires accessing fingerprint images scanned remotely at the users workstation, a potentially weak point in the security system. Stored or synthetic fingerprint images might be fraudulently transmitted, even if the communication channel itself is encrypted. In this paper we describe an algorithm for secure data hiding in wavelet compressed fingerprint images to alleviate this problem. Assuming the image capture device is secure, then only the decompressor on the server can locate the embedded message and thereby validate the submitted image.

Smart surveillance: applications, technologies and implications

Smart surveillance, is the use of automatic video analysis technologies in video surveillance applications. This paper attempts to answer a number of questions about smart surveillance: What are the applications of smart surveillance? What are the system architectures for smart surveillance? What are the key technologies? What are the some of the key technical challenges? and What are the implications of smart surveillance, both to security and privacy?.

Cancelable iris biometric

A person only has two irises - if his pattern is stolen he quickly runs out of alternatives. Thus methods that protect the true iris pattern need to be adopted in practical biometric applications. In particular, it is desirable to have a system that can generate a new unique pattern if the one being used is lost, or generate different unique patterns for different applications to prevent cross-matching. For backwards compatibility, these patterns should look like plausible irises so they can be handled with the same processing tools. However, they should also non-invertibly hide the true biometric so it is never exposed, or even stored. In this paper four such ldquocancelablerdquo biometric methods are proposed that work with conventional iris recognition systems, either at the unwrapped image level or at the binary iris code level.

Detection and tracking in the IBM PeopleVision system

The detection and tracking of people lie at the heart of many current and near-future applications of computer vision. We describe a background subtraction system designed to detect moving objects in a wide variety of conditions, and a second system to detect objects moving in front of moving backgrounds. Detected foreground regions are tracked with a tracking system which can initiate real-time alarms and generate a smart surveillance index which can be searched to find interesting events in stored video