Communications of the ACM
The Fight Against Biometric Spoofing
Efforts are ongoing to develop countermeasures against spoofed biometric identifiers.
Credit: Federal Computer Week
The European Union (EU) has provided additional funding for the Tabula Rasa Consortium, a research group developing countermeasures against spoofed biometric identifiers. The EU invested $6 million in the project, and media reports indicate the United States has provided $2.2 million.
Twelve organizations across seven countries have spent three years assessing biometric identification systems for vulnerabilities and developing countermeasures. Tabula Rasa already has transferred five of the countermeasures to companies in the EU. The project seeks to develop a draft of standards to evaluate the effectiveness of direct attacks on biometric identifiers. Faked fingerprints or bogus facial recognition scans could potentially plague ID systems. The group also plans to develop two lines of countermeasures — a single system that combines multiple biometric methods, and a system that uses more complex biometric measurements, including the way someone walks or unique electro-physiological signals, such as heartbeats.
Tabula Rasa recently hosted a Spoofing Challenge in which researchers devised innovative attack plans to deceive various biometric systems. One participant fooled a facial recognition system with a photograph, while another used simulated fingerprints to trick systems.
From Federal Computer Week
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Abstracts Copyright © 2013 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
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