Reaching the Edge
Biometrics is as simple as reading the veins in your palm
- By Ralph Jensen
- Dec 01, 2009
Biometrics has officially come of age, and ID technology is more commonplace than ever before. The technology
can be used for myriad applications -- some as simple as time and attendance. Other solutions include access
control to super secure areas in any given facility.
All biometric solutions easily handle identity management via the
network as security staff can be notified of authorization problems
as they happen.
A Cutting-edge Solution
Bates County Memorial Hospital in Butler, Mo., is switching an
existing fingerprint-based biometric time and attendance system
to a secure palm vein authentication solution. Part of the reason
for the change is the palm vein solution offers hygienic benefits
that aren’t found in their current system.
“When we were looking for a new biometric solution, we wanted
a system that would decrease the number of false negatives,
hygienically comply with hospital infection control standards, operate
easily within our existing IT infrastructure and cumulatively
provide a high level of credibility to our time and attendance system,”
said Daniel Cook, networking engineer at Bates Country
Memorial Hospital. He picked the Fujitsu Palmsecure palm vein
reader for the facility.
Cook described the solution as one that uses cutting-edge
palm vein pattern recognition technology for accurate identity
management authentication. Hospital employees embraced it, in
part, because it is contactless and features logical access authentication.
Its near-infrared light captures a person’s palm vein pattern
for authentication.
“One of the biggest selling points for biometrics is that they
can eliminate the need for keys or cards,” said Jon Mooney, Ingersoll
Rand Security Technologies’ general manager of biometrics
solutions. “While keys themselves don’t cost much and dramatic
price reductions have lowered the capital cost of the cards in recent
years, the true benefit of eliminating them is realized through
reduced administrative efforts.”
Bates County Memorial selected this solution because it represented
an open architecture and was scalable, said Mitch Goff,
chief technology officer at Creative Healthcare Systems. He also
said the solution is seen as a reliable and secure solution that is
interoperable using their existing browser-based system.
It’s in the Finger
Biometrics has long been known as fingerprint identification, but
what you may not have realized is that the fingerprint isn’t actually
scanned and sent as the identifier. Rather, the fingerprint image
is scanned and delivered as a mathematical representation. This
hash code is literally a piece of data -- not the actual fingerprint.
“Biometrics is really the only security technology that allows
you to link a person to the actions that he or she performs,” said
Jim Fulton, vice president of marketing at DigitalPersona. “This
makes it much easier for your business to know who’s doing what
and when.”
Fulton said biometrics allows businesses to manage their
processes better and protect assets, data and communication
much more effectively because all security applications can be
what analysts are calling “identity aware.”
Being identity aware is much more convenient and reliable
for the end user because they don’t have to worry about lost or
forgotten keys or identity cards. They also don’t have to worry
whether an imposter might masquerade as someone else.
“Stealing fingerprints is actually very difficult,” Fulton said.
“When you hear this claim in real life, what these people are
actually doing is stealing their own fingerprint. The fingerprint
sensors go to a lot of work to make sure they have good imaging
equipment and techniques to ensure there is good contact
between the finger and the reader.”
Most fingerprint readers already have a built-in rejection
application in case an imposter attempts to use photocopies or
tape with a fingerprint image on it.
A Growing Trend
Biometrics is here to stay, but who is using the technology and
why they should use it is often just as thought provoking as the
technology itself.
Fulton said there are two different types of biometrics; one is
used by government and law enforcement for immigration and
police work, for example. That’s a very different class of products
than the commercial systems.
Biometrics experts are seeing a huge growth spurt in the
commercial arena. More and more businesses want an application
that can link a person to their actions or reliably identify
an individual.
“Biometrics gives that certainty that the person who enters the
building is truly that person,” Fulton said.
Biometrics also is making inroads into the healthcare industry,
especially when it comes to dispensing medication and accessing
a hospital medication dispensing system. A growing number
of financial institutions also have turned to biometrics for
internal processes where banking officials are able to track who
authorized a given transaction. Outside the United States, banks
are using biometrics as a solution for customer transactions. In
North America, bank customers are accustomed to carrying
a banking card and, therefore, biometrics is not typically used.
One of the fastest growth areas for use of biometrics in North
America is at points of sale, particularly in restaurants and retail outlets. Cashiers use biometrics when signing on to their shift; all
they have to do is touch a fingerprint reader. This replaces slide
cards, passwords and pins, limiting fraud to a greater degree.
“Today’s nightmare for many enterprise IT folks and CIOs is
they keep coming back year after year, upping the ante for what
people have to do, and biometrics play a very good role in addressing
the growing needs for certainty,” Fulton said. “That’s
what it’s all about -- giving businesses the ability to know who’s
using the business group’s assets. It’s not about tracking people
and what they’re doing. It’s about tracking the use of the equipment
and the data that is critical for the business to manage in
order to be efficiently and properly run.”
Taking Five
Hand geometry readers use an advanced antimicrobial technology
that reduces the spread of micro-organisms on their platens,
where the user rests the hand for recognition. A silver-based agent
is embedded into the materials used to produce the platen of the
biometric hand geometry units, providing a hygienic finish that
resists bacterial degradation.
If the goal of an access control system is to let authorized people --
not just keys or credentials -- into specific places, biometrics
can achieve that goal. A card-based access system will control the
access of authorized pieces of plastic but not who is in possession
of the card.
“In order to avoid the threats and inconveniences that a
password-only environment presents, many organizations attempt
to add additional layers of authentication via tokens
or smart cards,” said Vance Bjorn, co-founder and CTO at
DigitalPersona Inc.
Biometric devices will verify who a person is by their
hand, eye, fingerprint or voice. Physical items are susceptible
to loss, theft or sharing within an organization, making
them no more secure than a well-run password management
and rotation policy.
The use of fingerprint, facial or voice recognition biometrics
within an IT system’s authentication process makes it extremely
difficult for intruders to gain access to critical information or databases.
What used to be thought of as futuristic has now developed
into reliable, strong authentication solutions. It can be
easily integrated into the IT infrastructure, making deployment
and central management simple for IT staff and saving valuable
IT funds.
Biometrics is a solution that applies equally to the
physical aspect of security, as well as a dynamic well within
the IT security concern.
This article originally appeared in the December 2009 issue of Network-Centric Security.