What is biometric authentication?| Advantages of biometric system

What is biometric authentication? how does it work? why there is a lot of use for biometric authentication? It is the latest invention in the tech world to bring more security and safety to your data. We will see each and everything about this in this post. We will also see if is it safe to use biometric authentication or not. So keep reading till the end you will come to know a lot about it in this post.

What is biometric authentication?

Let’s understand the very first and basic thing about it. Biometrics is the latest invention in the technology world to access your data which is stored digitally. Biometric authentication includes your body part’s scan through which you can access the stored data. The body parts can include your fingerprints, your eye, your face, your voice, etc. People were using the text-based password and sometimes they forget it. Then bypassing so many security questions they were able to access their digitally stored data.

Also, read Who Controls the Internet?

Biometrics is next-level security data management after text or pattern-based authentication. People may forget their password but through Biometric you can easily access your data by scanning your fingerprint, face, or eye. You don’t even need to remember your password, isn’t it good? Biometrics is used by almost every sector, like mobile companies, home or office doors, apps and etc. It increases the security and saves login time rather than putting the text-based password. Text-based password is easy to break rather than biometric authentication. The most important thing about using it is, it is more secure and fast.

What is an example of biometric authentication?

Biometrics are replacing pattern, pin, and text passwords. Your body parts like fingerprints, retina, and face carry unique attributes. Your face can match someone else but your fingerprint identification is unique. You must have seen biometric authentication is used in documentation like making Aadhar cards, Driving licenses, passports, and Banking sectors. It is also been used in online banking services to authenticate the real user of that account. So these are examples of biometric authentication.

You may be shocked after hearing that scientists are working on a technology that can authenticate a person on the basis of their heartbeat. Apart from it, they are also working on projects in which they can verify the person on the basis of their brainwaves. You don’t need long passwords including letters, numbers, and unique characters for your account security. Now all the things can be accessed by your body parts in just one click.

Fingerprint vs Password security.

Why do we use biometric authentication? Using your fingerprints instead of typing the password is obviously more easy and fast. By using brute force and dictionary attacks, a hacker can crack your password. But it is hard to break a biometric-based lock system. A password-based locked system is something that you need to memorize. If anyone found it, they can use it against your secured data. We all know about leaked data online, still, it depends upon your multi-factor authentication.

A text-based password is stored in the cloud database but biometrics stores the physical data in their systems. There are no sensitive data is saved on the cloud or shared with the service provider. This is also a reason why biometrics are more secure.

How does biometrics work?

It is majorly used in 3 biometric behaviors like eye, fingerprint, and face recognition. Do you know fingerprints are used for authentication on a large scale when biometric technology started? So let’s understand how it works. It involves fingerprint template formation. When the original fingerprints are captured by an optical sensor, then a monochrome image is formed. This is done by the algorithm of biometric technology.

After getting the real image of fingerprints, it converts into a single thin line. After that, it creates a sharp image, and then a Gabor filter is used that creates 4 times for a block of the pixel, valley, ridges, and bifurcation. Approx 15-20 minutiae are marked, and thereafter the final image is created. Step 2 is the matching fingerprint algorithm. To match the algorithm employee shows his card number, which instructs the database to get his fingerprints.

And the data fingerprint template in the database is matched with the extracted fingerprints. The real image of the fingerprint that is stored in the database matches the extracted fingerprint. This complete process is done by DSP, and all this process is completed in just a few seconds. Hope you must have understood how it works.

Is biometric authentication safe?

When biometrics was introduced then people had a lot of questions that, Is biometric authentication safe? Every technology has a drawback and it is not 100% safe. Hackers may steal any kind of data to hack the system. It is up to you how to be safe from such criminal activities. There was some news where hackers had stolen the user’s videos from the CCTV footage and they easily decoded the facial authentication.

If you are holding anything with your bare hands, then with the help of your fingerprints they can create a duplicate replica of your fingerprints and enter it into your private database. However it is not much easy as it sounds, but it is far better than text-based passwords. So I would say rather than using a text password, biometric authentication is safe.

Pros and Cons of biometric authentication.

Let’s see what are the advantages and disadvantages of biometric authentication further.

Pros.

1. It is fast, secure, and easy to use, and no need to remember any password even an illiterate person can use it.
2.  It does not share any sensitive data with its provider because it stores its data in the system only.
3. Biometric authentication requires less storage and memory.
4.  It is secure and it is not transferrable.
5. It recognizes only its authenticated user, the real one.
6. Biometric authentication reduces the chance of scams and protects against sensitive data.
7. The user interface is not there which makes it quick, easy, and fast.
8.  It provides complete control of accessing the data to only its user.
9.  It is flexible to use in any kind of place and device.

Cons.

1. The lack of accurate data can lead to failure during authentication.
2. It is difficult to pass the authentication if any body parts are burned or damaged.
3. Sometimes due to scanner issues, it takes time to login into the database.
4. It is expensive and costs high maintenance.
5. Due to the carelessness of the user, hackers can make replicas of the body part and steal the information.
6. If someone can mimic the same voice, then it is easy to pass the authentication.

So this was the complete overview of What is biometric authentication? how does it work and its pros and cons as well? I am pretty much sure you must have got a good idea about biometric authentication.