December 14, 2005—An engineer from Clarkson University says many biometric fingerprint readers machines cannot distinguish between a live sample and a fake one.
Stephanie C. Schuckers, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Clarkson University recently tested readers using “spoofing,” a process by which individuals can overcome a biometric security system through the introduction of a fake sample.
“Digits from cadavers and fake fingers molded from plastic, or even something as simple as Play-Doh or gelatin, can potentially be misread as authentic,” she says in a release on the university’s Web Site. “My research addresses these deficiencies and investigates ways to design effective safeguards and vulnerability countermeasures. The goal is to make the authentication process as accurate and reliable as possible.”
Schuckers’ biometric research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. She is currently assessing spoofing vulnerability in fingerprint scanners and designing methods to correct for these as part of a $3.1 million interdisciplinary research project funded through the NSF.
The project, “ITR: Biometrics: Performance, Security and Societal Impact,” investigates the technical, legal and privacy issues raised from broader applications of biometric system technology in airport security, computer access or immigration. It is a joint initiative among researchers from Clarkson, West Virginia University, Michigan State University, St. Lawrence University and the University of Pittsburgh.
For more information, visit the Clarkson Web site.
