Biometrics are scary, coming fast and by no means fool proof

You can change a stolen password, but you can’t change your face

Despite the Australian government’s recent termination of its contract with NEC for a multimillion-dollar biometric identity project citing delays, the race to wide-scale biometric verification continues.

 

Despite the hype surrounding biometric screening, technologies such as facial recognition are no silver bullet. Whether being used for identification verification, law enforcement or one facet in multi-factor authentication, flaws are routinely being discovered in this burgeoning technology.

 

Almost as soon as these solutions are released, cyber attackers and security researchers discover ways to thwart them. In 2014, German hacker Jan “Starbug” Krissler demonstrated how fingerprints could be faked with only a few high-resolution photos of someone’s hands.

Source: Biometrics are scary, coming fast and by no means fool proof | afr.com