JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It seems the fight to protect your personal information from scammers and hackers is never-ending. While unique passwords and two-step authentication are a great place to start, Action News Jax investigates the future of cybersecurity where your body is the key to keeping your personal information safe.
If you have your phone nearby, try going to social media or checking your email. If you use your fingerprint or face to unlock your phone, that is a form of biometric security. It’s a technology that uses unique physical or behavioral characteristics to verify a person’s identity. Some examples of those traits include the iris or retina in your eyes, your voice, face, fingerprints, veins, and even the way you walk.
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Action News Jax Anchor Tenikka Hughes went to the University of North Florida’s School of Computing to learn more about biometric security and how we may see it used in the future.
Assistant Professor Dr. Corey Pittman says biometric systems offer better protection than traditional passwords.
“Those things require somebody to physically be touching you or find a way to actually pull that information directly off of you versus a password, which people don’t change their passwords often enough or they use the same password in a number of places,” Pittman said.
Biometrics are tough to hack, but not impossible. Back in 2014, the BBC reported during a convention, a well-known hacker revealed that he was able to fake the fingerprints of then-German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen using various photos of her hands.
Dr. Zornitza Prodanoff, Interim Director of the School of Computing, has researched biometrics for over a decade, including electrocardiogram or ECG signals.
“Unfortunately, with passwords, once your password is compromised, you can easily change it. With biometrics data, not so much. We don’t change the iris of our eyes and our ECG signals of the heart on the patterns of our veins in our palms,” Dr. Prodanoff said.
So if your physical data is accessed or stolen, it could mean permanent or long-term risks. Still, Dr. Prodanoff says the benefits of biometric security significantly outweigh the concerns.
“Absolutely. It’s constantly evolving technology,” Dr. Prodanoff said.
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Some of that evolution is happening on campus. Dr. Pittman and UNF Senior Stephen Pond showed Tenikka their “gesture-based recognition technology.”
They demonstrated how Pond was able to log into his email by waving his hand in front of his computer monitor. No typing or touch required.
“No one wants to sit there waving their hand in front of a device for, you know, 30 seconds straight. But the more complex you make it, the more secure it would be,” Pond said.
Surprisingly, their system doesn’t use cameras but sound.
“So we emit a known sound from the speakers and we record that sound from the microphone on the device. And then using those two together we can through some processing, figure out what motions are happening in the environment,” Dr. Pittman said.
The system then determines if the movements it’s detecting match up with what it has been trained to recognize. If it does, access is granted.
Another safeguard, their technology doesn’t save any of the sound or information it gathers and Pond says you can create several different gestures to perform the same function. A glimpse into the future of biometric security promising next-level protection with you at the center.
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Biometric systems may offer increased security and convenience, but Dr. Prodanoff and Dr. Pittman suggest we all make sure we understand the privacy trade-offs--- and take the time to read the fine print to understand how our data is being used and stored.
According to Prodanoff, faculty at UNF have been working on biometrics research for many years. About 15 years ago Dr. Prodanoff collaborated on a study with a student and a colleague from Electrical Engineering to find patterns in heart rhythm biometrics. The team used physiological Echocardiogram (ECG) signals and found specific patterns in them through a method known as wavelet analysis.
Studies like theirs led incrementally to the development of wearable device technology for continuous authentication where hands-free, persistent authentication is needed. One use case is where employees in high-security facilities wear wristbands, embedded with specialized chips. Continuous remote monitoring of those bracelet-like devices and the ECG signal patterns detected by the bracelets ensure that only authorized personnel have access to the premises at any given time.
According to Dr. Prodanoff, an example of that technology is being used in the Nymi Band.
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