5 Biometric Alternatives To The Password

There are many things that make you special: Your sense of humor, your dance moves, your personal style, the shape of your ear.

That's right, your ear.

The password has had its moment, but those hard-to-remember strings of number and letters are increasingly insecure and clumsy to manage. The next wave in computer security will be biometric authentication, the futuristic practice of using unique behavioral and biological traits such as fingerprints, gait and yes, even ear shape to confirm your identity. 

 

Heartbeat

Your heart's activity and its electrical signals are distinct and very difficult to replicate. The technology for reading an individual's electrocardiographic signals (ECG) has been around for many years, but recent advancements have shrunk the sensing devices to small sizes and made them less invasive.

Ear shape

Sensitive touchscreens can pick up much more than a finger tap or swipe. With the right software and phone, they can detect the shape of a human ear.

Walk

If you've ever listened to someone walking past in the office and immediately known who it was, or spotted a friend from a distance by the way they moved, you've already seen the power of gait recognition.

Typing speed

Typing, like walking, varies from person to person. Keystroke biometrics record how a person types and calculates their unique pattern, speed and rhythm. It determines how long they hold down each key and the space of time between different letters.

Face recognition

Like fingerprints, face recognition is already being used in popular technology. Law enforcement and other entities are building databases to take advantage of recent advancements in facial recognition.

Reference:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/04/tech/innovation/5-biometrics-future/

 

No Risk Management or Poor Risk Management?

Nostrapharmus calls for Good Risk Management Practice in order to satisfy both regulatory demands and business needs ‘At least we tried’ is a phrase unlikely to receive any sympathy when you are held to account for knowing about a risk, but not addressing it appropriately.Especially in an industry where public responsibilities are beyond those of ordinary business ethics, safety is paramount and, what you don’t know is going to hurt you.

As Nostrapharmus says, ‘the minimum requirement has to be an explanation of the actions taken, or not, as the case may be'. This, alongside evidence to support the decisions made, is a start to exercising the principles of Good Risk Management Practice (GRMP). Such principles must maximize the benefits of risk management across the business whilst also ensuring the satisfaction of emergent requirements from the regulators. It is imperative when implementing risk management, to put mechanisms in place to manage the required actions before getting too excited about where the greatest risks exist in the business.

Just some of the payouts in recent years:

Who knows what the total commercial cost was in each case.

It is likely that the impact is still being felt in many of these instances. So, how could risk management have made a difference in these, and other, cases?

Reference:

http://www.wcigroup.com/Nostrapharmus/No%20Risk%20Management%20or%20Poor%20Risk%20Management.pdf