Opt out of biometric authentication

Around 2009, I bought my first laptop (Lenovo). One of the major feature advertised was face recognition. At first, I was excited to try. The authentication was seamless.

But, out of curiosity. I took my picture placed it in front of the webcam. It worked! Seriously? this was a major security risk. How difficult is it for anyone to get my photo. One just have to google my name.

Later, fingerprint authentication caught up. I first saw it in the HP Laptops. Though the process was not seamless. One had to try multiple times to make it work. Soon, it was seen in phones.

Getting your fingerprint is a piece of cake. Go to any place there is no count on the objects you touch. Once the fingerprint is in the hands of the hacker, it can be replayed multiple times and your security is compromised for life.

Then came voice controlled assistants. Some of them like Google Now, Siri recognises user’s voice patterns and gives access to some functions like making a call, etc through voice commands.

The same technology which is used to recognise a person’s voice (Neural Networks) can be used to mimic it(given enough training data). LyreBird has already been able to generate the voice of the President of United States. I have written another post on how exactly voice controlled systems can be hacked here.

Though Apple claims that their new iPhone’s Face ID cannot be hacked. I would say, it is just a matter of time. Biometrics posses high risk. The best alternative as Quincy Larson suggest in his post, use a passcode. Because unlike biometrics passcode can be changed.

Follow Hackernoon and me (Febin John James) for more stories. I am also writing a book to raise awareness on the Blue Whale Challenge, which has claimed lives of many teenagers in several countries. It is intended to help parents understand the threat of the dark web and to take actions to ensure safety of their children. The book Fight The Blue Whale is available for pre-order on Amazon. The title will be released on 20th of this month.