ONGOING TRENDS
By Milica D. Djekic
The first and most obvious application of the biometrics is an access control. That means only the actors with the accurate biometrics that matches information from a database can get an approach to some facilities or areas. The access control points are the real collectors of the biometrics traces and for such a reason it’s needed to apply a good analytics in order to produce an actionable intelligence. On the other hand, the biometrics data are somehow put into their databases and the biggest challenge is to prevent inserting those findings into the dataset. The experience shows there are two common ways to insert the biometrics parameters into the database and those are through insider threat activities and via cybercrime operations. Basically, those data can be inserted there, but at the access control point someone can look for ID documents that would be compared with the true biometrics details on the spot. That’s how we come to the counterfeit challenges and need to put under control that black market. In the practice, there are a lot of biometrics variations and some of them are fingerprint, iris detection, digital signature, DNA track and much more. Those kinds of findings can serve first; for access control and second; for identity recognition especially if we talk about the incident spot occurrences. The crime scene is a very transferable topic, but the place of the incident is usually the scene of the inspection. Some people could be confused about the difference between the crime scene and inspection spot, but the most obvious stuff here is the crime scene is correlated with the offender and the inspection spot matters only at the place where the incident happened. The skillful criminologists know that the crime’s actors must be uncovered sometimes and it’s always good to confirm those gatherers of the trace in order to get a track.
The fact is no one committing the crime in the world can stay uncovered as there are so many ways to leave the trace somewhere and sometime. The most crucial thing with the biometrics is it can offer some degree of accuracy as those data are unique for every single person around the globe. It seems the biometrics is so powerful weapon and the need for the well-developed biometrics centers is increasing. The reason for so is the majority of the global population could be put under the monitoring in order to reduce a risk from the transnational crime and terrorism. From this point of view, it appears the biometrics could be a key factor to make the world being a safer place for life and business. The topic of this effort suggests the article will be about the cyber defense and indeed; as we have mentioned – there are two main risks from putting someone’s biometrics data into the database. Apparently, that database is normally part of some IT infrastructure and can be accommodated on some server or the entire datacenter. The methods of doing so are through the corrupted staffs in the Police or, second, via the clever hackers that can locate such a server and its database simply inserting data in there. The point is the majority of the tools being applied to create someone’s account in the Police are online and sometimes in the cloud, so if we talk about the cybercrime actions it’s clear that the hackers can steal someone’s privileges and log into officer’s account compromising that staff and inserting data through such a mean. It that sense, it seems that we need the active cyber security that could provide a less risk to all. In addition, in order to insert the biometrics parameters into the system it’s needed to cope with the biometrics reader that can give an opportunity to make a digital image out of that scanning and store it into someone’s ID profile or account.
This effort indicates that even the biometrics data are not excluded from hacking. The primary usage of the biometrics is in the access control and places that serve as those findings collectors are the real sources of the traces sending the message to everyone that sooner or later anyone must be uncovered circulating in the zone of such an activity. For all those reasons, it’s important to take into consideration the future tactics and strategies on how to protect our biometrics centers as no one of the bad guys could take advantage over our flaws and lacks of the attention, so far.
About the Author
Milica D. Djekic is an Independent Researcher from Subotica, the Republic of Serbia (Europe). She received her engineering background from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade. She writes for some domestic and overseas presses and she is also the author of the book “The Internet of Things: Concept, Applications and Security” and “The Insider’s Threats: Operational, Tactical and Strategic Perspective” being published in 2017 and 2021 respectively with the Lambert Academic Publishing. Milica is also a speaker with the BrightTALK expert’s channel and Cyber Security Summit Europe being held in 2016 as well as CyberCentral Summit 2019 being one of the most exclusive cyber defense events in Europe. She is the member of an ASIS International since 2017 and contributor to the Cyber Defense Magazine since 2014 and the Australian Cyber Security Magazine since 2018. Milica’s research efforts are recognized with Computer Emergency Response Team for the European Union (CERT-EU), Censys Press, BU-CERT UK and EASA European Centre for Cybersecurity in Aviation (ECCSA). Her fields of interests are cyber defense, technology and business. Milica is a person with disability.
