The importance of biometric sensor continuous secure monitoring

Abstract

The security of a biometric information system depends partially on the ability of the biometric information sensor to authenticate itself securely to the processing centre it usually interacts with, thus ensuring that the securely transmitted biometric data has not been constructed by an attacker. The biometric sensors of a biometric information system are often physically exposed to potential adversaries who may manipulate them and therefore compromise the security of the system. Such attacks can be detected by continuous and secure sensor monitoring. The proposed scheme is based on the Kerberos protocol for dealing with sensor authentication issues. Using authenticated control/data packets its functionality has been extended to provide secure sensor monitoring, which can help in detecting physical attacks on the sensor itself. © 2008 IEEE.