Biometrics allows for authentication and identification of persons based on their unique biological characteristics. Previously reserved for sensitive applications like military security, this technology is rapidly gaining popularity in the public domain to tackle the increasing cases of document fraud, identity theft, terrorism and cybercrime.
This tech has established itself to be a reliable, fast and economical security solution with applications in different areas including banking, AFIS, healthcare, workforce management and public safety. With all the benefits that come with biometric tech, it is clear why your institution and many others are incorporating it into the IT infrastructure.
Is biometric tech foolproof?
As with any operating system, application or software, biometric security technology may be providing another level of security, but it is not foolproof. As with passwords and credit cards, biometric hacks do happen, but they come with greater consequences because they reveal a person’s identity which can be used to falsify legal documents, criminal records, passports and so on.
This can get even risky because unlike passwords, biometric identifiers are not private since you leave fingerprints wherever you go, your image is stored in several places and you reveal your eyes whenever you look at things. This goes to show that with this infrastructure addition to your IT system; your log management is going to get even harder.
Security event logging
If you want to catch an intruder, then you will have to plan ahead. This is why you need to keep your computers patched and updated at all times but even with that, it is fairly inevitable to get hit with malicious activity in the form of a virus, ransomware or a hack.
Logging supplies you with evidence of when, where and what method of unauthorized access or malicious activity occurred across your IT infrastructure. This will go a long way in catching an alleged hacker as MIT proved in the case against Aaron Swartz.
The problem is that as you expand your IT infrastructure, you generate huge volumes of log data that become not only unstructured but also difficult to control and set infrastructure-wide policies. This requires proper aggregation, organization and management of logs so that identifying the specific target of security attack do not turn out to be a lengthy iterative process.
Dealing with big data logging
Security breaches especially when dealing with biometric technologies can be very serious and avoiding this problem is way more desirable than fixing them.
So, how do you ensure that the huge data sets generated by logs help you to diagnose the problem early enough?
This is the question that centralized logging and even log management is helping to answer with good solutions like the Papertrail log management tool and others that are in the market today.
These tools not only enable you to view and search through all your logs from a single dashboard in real-time but also control access to your logs since logs are also a prime target for attackers who are keen to hide their activities.
Complying with industry standards can also be a problem if your logging components are not well configured, but with a proper log management tool, you should be able to set log management policies in minutes.
Biometric security has come forward as the most sophisticated tech for authentication, verification and identification but it also has been a victim of information security challenges that continue to hit hard. With biometrics market expected to hit $24 billion by 2021, it evident that it will become a center of attention for criminals who manipulate biometric data to succeed in their malicious activities. Remember that no system, however technologically advanced, is totally foolproof and you need to be always on the lookout.
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Founder Dinis Guarda
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