Researchers have recently developed a biometric system that scans the dimensions of users’ hearts to lock or unlock gadgets.
David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab provides an insight on the development as well as the implications of biometric technology in general.
David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab:
“The swift development of biometric technologies over the next few years could potentially offer us better ways to authenticate themselves, and many organisations are keen to implement solutions as soon as possible.
However, there is a downside to the use of biometrics. Biometric data stored by a service provider is just as valuable a target as a database containing usernames and passwords. Any security breach resulting in leakage of this information is likely to have much more serious consequences than the theft of a password: after all, we can change a weak password, but we can’t change a compromised fingerprint, iris scan or in this case, the dimensions of our hearts. Although if the biometric data is stored on the individual device as opposed to the cloud, then this minimises the risks.
I firmly believe that biometrics should be used more as a replacement for a username, with a password or other mechanism – ideally more than one – used to confirm that identity. This would limit the damage, should one of these authentication methods be compromised.”
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